Origins of a Steelers Fan: The End of Ben

2021 was one of the most difficult years of my life personally. Navigating my second year of veterinary school and dealing with a lot of turmoil and challenges in my personal life, I got away from football for a bit. I still loved it deep down, but I just didn’t have the motivation or energy to watch a lot of it consistently like I had since I was a young girl.

As things started to improve in my personal life and I began to feel a bit better, I watched the tail end of the 2021 season more closely. Football was bringing joy and a distraction to my life that I felt like I absolutely needed. Even overwhelmed and down on myself, I realized I still had such a passion for the game, and giving myself football time made me feel more like myself again.

I remember watching the interview they did with Ben Roethlisberger prior to Week 15 at home against the Cleveland Browns. Ben stated that this would most likely be his last game at Heinz Field. While not 100% definitive in his answer, it was telling; this game would be the last time Steelers fans got to see #7 suit up for the black and gold and run out of the tunnel. After a decorated 18-year career with Super Bowl rings, controversy, flinging defenders off of his back like the flipper of a pinball machine, and a true transition off-field from boy to man to father and husband, this one last 60-minute football game would be it. I suited up in my #7 jersey with my pups in my small upstate New York apartment, settled in on my couch, and took in every moment of the game as much as I could.

The game itself was not super memorable. There was no historic performance during it; in fact, the game was actually a little ugly. It did, however, end in a Steelers win. That W was the only important statistic of the evening. To finish out the game, Ben Roethlisberger took a knee to run the clock out.

As non-memorable as the game itself was, the post-game events will always live vividly in my head. During Ben’s post-game interview, with tears in his eyes, he talked about how taking a knee was the best play in football. He was grateful he got to do it one last time in front of the home fans. Then, because so many knew this was his last game at Heinz Field, many fans stayed in their seats for Roethlisberger’s farewell laps around the stadium. The energy of the crowd could be felt through the TV; I can only imagine the immensity of it in person. I watched with chills and tears in my eyes as the man that made me fall in love with football took the time to give a final on-field goodbye to Steelers Nation. The broadcasting team talked about how it was the end of a love affair between a city and their quarterback, and they were exactly right. Love him or hate him, I don’t think there will ever be another quarterback whose play style fits the city of Pittsburgh so well. Roethlisberger was incredibly tough, playing through a lot of hard hits and injuries in his career. He got the job done, and many would say it wasn’t pretty the way he played. Not every ball he threw was precisely on time or thrown in a beautiful spiral like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. He was hard to bring to the ground, he extended plays like no one else, and he was the true king of the scramble drill. Historically a blue-collar city, the people of Pittsburgh and of western and central Pennsylvania also often consider themselves hard workers, even if their jobs are not pretty. The Steelers are known for playing a physical brand of football. There are not many quarterbacks who could be named that played the game more physical than Ben. His falling to #11 in the 2004 draft to Pittsburgh was meant to be, and he and the city were a match made in heaven.

This was such an emotional and memorable game because we as fans were not just saying goodbye to an aging Ben Roethlisberger; we were saying goodbye to so much more. We were saying goodbye to an entire era. After 18 years, Ben was the last player rostered from those 2000s and 2010s teams that made championship runs. All the magic of those teams was now officially in the past. We were saying goodbye to Heinz Field and the iconic ketchup bottles that graced the sign outside the stadium, as the naming rights were changed, and the stadium was known as Acrisure Stadium beginning in 2022. It marked the end of a chapter and the beginning of new one in Steelers football history, leaving fans (or me, at least), with feelings of sadness, gratitude, and excitement all at once.

What would the Pittsburgh Steelers look like without Ben Roethlisberger? I hadn’t a clue; I had never seen anything else up to that point. I had a lot of questions about the team going forward. For that night, though, all that mattered was staying present and soaking up the ending of this chapter in Steelers history.

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