The Pittsburgh Steelers would like to be done answering questions about players that are gone. Ben Roethlisberger, instead, hopes to focus on what the players still in the building bring to the table.
At his youth football camp over the weekend, Big Ben said he's excited for the group that currently wears the black and yellow.
"I'm excited, I really am excited in what we have," Roethlisberger told Jeremy Fowler of ESPN. "We put a lot of work in, that's what it's going to take, it's going to take a team effort. We're all going to give everything we have and see where it goes. We can't predict the future, but we can predict we're going to give everything we have."
Gone are Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell, but it's not as if Big Ben is now playing with scrap meat. JuJu Smith-Schuster is a legit No. 1 receiver. James Conner proved to be a menacing workhorse runner when healthy. Vance McDonald is a bulldozing tight end and reliable target. Free-agent receiver Donte Moncrief has received offseason praise within the building and could finally put together consistency to go with physical talent. Ryan Switzer is a shifty slot who seems to have earned Big Ben's trust. And it would shock no one if one of the Steelers' other draft picks at receiver morphs into a playmaker, whether that's second-year WR James Washington or rookie Diontae Johnson.
Sure, replacing Brown and Bell is easier said than done, but as long as a Hall of Famer like Roethlisberger is under center, the Steelers' offense should be fine, even if it's not as explosive. If the defense finally starts to catch up, Pittsburgh will remain in the playoff hunt.
"It's been a little crazy the last few years, maybe more so than usual that we're used to dealing with," Roethlisberger said. "To kind of get back to quote unquote normalcy is kind of nice."
Whether that normalcy turns into a winner with different faces will be the question surrounding Pittsburgh until the season starts.
