We’re All Witnessing The End of the Big Ben Era and an Organizational Failure:

That’s the only narrative that be should be coming out of Sunday’s debacle where the Steelers were exposed in every phase in a 24-10 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

At the end of the day the Steelers made their bed. What we’re seeing from a 39 year old Ben Roethlisberger was always the more likely outcome than Roethlisberger maintaining or getting better with age like the Steelers talked themselves into believing. Roethlisberger’s second half interception just felt like the end for him and there were several other situations from him in the game where Roethlisberger looked everything of a quarterback that’s fallen off a cliff to go with no help from the sidelines or the personnel that has much of a chance to elevate the QB who needs it majorly and just doesn’t have it anymore. Roethlisberger on Sunday looked like Kent Graham trying to avoid a pass rush. That’s how ugly it was.

What Tom Brady does is not normal at his age.

Ye, the Steelers just continued to operate each off-season since the 2019 season that Roethlisberger was in his late 20’s, not his late 30’s. They put all their eggs in this basket that they could always muster one more Super Bowl run out of Roethlisberger who has three playoff wins since the 2011 season.

It’s led to a major organizational failure with their being no succession plan.

All of the signs were there late last season that Roethlisberger was old, slow and over. But, the Steelers doubled down again that they were going to ride things out with Ben instead of jumping out in front of things.

And the organizational failure goes back to the trade up for Devin Bush, which now looks like a major mis-calculation. You better be near 100 percent certain your getting a special player if your moving up into the top-10. Meanwhile, Bush is just another guy who leaders on that team can’t stand off the field. When your franchise quarterback is as old as Roethlisberger is and no longer elite, you save that draft capital to eventually go up for a top-10 caliber quarterback.

‘But we believe Ben is going to defy logic and remain elite at 39, 40 years old’ has been the stance from Art Rooney II & Co double downed on. It’s now going to set the franchise back.

Bengals say the Steelers quit

— Sunday’s debacle was so crushing with the body language from so many on the field to the sidelines is that the season might be over after just three games.

Cincinnati players could see it right through the Steelers, just look at Tyler Boyd’s comments.

“For a team to just lay down like that before the game was over. No matter how much we’re losing by, I know me, I know us, we are not giving up. We are going to continue to try to make plays and make something happen. They portrayed it to the nation what they were about, they gave up said Boyd.”

On top of that immediately after Sunday’s game the coach and quarterback said they ran out of plays.

On the 4th and 10 from the Bengals 11 yard line call, Mike Tomlin said the Steelers ran out of bullets at that juncture of the game.

“We had fired all of our bullets at that juncture in terms of some of our plays selection, said Tomlin. “It just wasn’t a good enough play to get in there.”

Will say it again. It’s baffling how Steelers believed so much that Ben Roethlisberger had something left in the tank and they came to the conclusion to hand the keys to Matt Canada, who is showing everything of a rookie offensive coordinator over his head that has no clue how to offset the limitations he’s dealing with.

“I’m a little stumped by it, “Roethlisberger said of the offense’s dismal start to the season. I’m frustrated, I’m hurt. I hate losing….

Pittsburgh’s Next Four Games:

@ Green Bay
vs Denver
vs Seattle
@ Cleveland

And there’s only 1-2 games left on the schedule where you can go in and say the Steelers have or might have the edge at quarterback.

Inside the Division, five games remain against the Browns, Ravens and Bengals where the Steelers have a disadvantage in the head-to-head QB matchup and I’d add near significant in the cases against LaMar Jackson and Baker Mayfield.

The gap is enormous in matchups against elite QB’s Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert……

While down a tier from those four, there’s still a sizeable gap in the Tennessee and Minnesota matchups with Tannehill vs Roethlisberger or the field and Cousins vs Roethlisberger or the field. It’s not even close.

That’s 11 of the 14 remaining games where the opposition has a clear edge at QB and major edge in a lot of cases.

And right now many would surely give Denver the QB edge over Roethlisberger for their ensuring matchup.

It’s certainly the end of an era where the Steelers could always show up on Sunday with a QB that could go toe-to-toe with the opposition.

To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!