The Steelers are 3-2, which is hardly a horrible start to the season. But those two losses were painful; an overtime game lost to Mike Glennon’s Chicago Bears in Week 3, and now today’s disheartening blowout loss at home to the Jaguars.

The Jaguars played well, especially rookie running back Leonard Fournette, but the 30-9 scoreline was heavily influenced by the struggles of Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben threw five interceptions on the day, and when your quarterback does that, it’s pretty difficult to win a game.

Afterwards, Roethlisberger was either incredibly self-analytical while pondering his future, or just being a dismissive tool. You be the judge:

 

“I’m not playing well enough…maybe I don’t have it anymore. Not playing well enough. (reporter asks about fluky interceptions) Yep, that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes. Play this game long enough, you’re going to get those games.”

That sounds more like a disinterested player coming off a bad game looking to get through a media scrum as quickly as possible, without really caring to dive into the ins and outs of what may have caused said bad performance. It’s unlikely Roethlisberger is actually thinks he “doesn’t have it anymore”; he’s never seemed the introspective sort, after all. More likely, he’s just offering the kind of answers that athletes offer when they just want to get out of there without causing too much of a distraction.

He almost succeeded here, and indeed he avoided the main problem, which is the appearance of team dissension. But still, throwing five picks and then wondering aloud whether you may not be able to play quarterback at an NFL level is still a story, whether he meant it or not.

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.