Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger flirted with retirement this offseason, and again upon his arrival to training camp. While some, including NFL Network's Aditi Kinkhabwala, noted that this could be a motivational ploy, the team's management team was listening.
At some point, they will need to prepare for life without Big Ben.
"I hope he stays here more than one year, but we have to be prepared," Steelers GM Kevin Colbert told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
He added: "Will I see more games, maybe, more quarterbacks? Maybe. Not because of what he said, but where he is. At 35, you may put a replacement in place sooner than later, and we did that, again adding a young player like a Josh Dobbs into the mix at this point. All of a sudden Landry's a free agent last year and that kind of snuck up on us as well, so you want to put another young quarterback in the mix. Fortunately we signed Landry (Jones), and we have him for a longer period than we did at this point last year."
While Colbert thinks Roethlisberger has "a lot" of good football left in him, this is the logical approach. For teams like the Patriots and Packers, the clock on finding your next franchise quarterback starts the moment you find your current one. The Steelers (Dobbs and Jones), Giants (Davis Webb), Saints (Garrett Grayson) and Cowboys (Dak Prescott) have all taken legitimate shots at finding a successor for their aging quarterbacks in recent years. Some already have. The Cardinals and Chargers cannot be that far behind.
