There probably are not many left who would dispute the notion that Ben Roethlisberger will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer five years after he officially retires, whenever that happens to be. The 17th-year Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback has won two Super Bowls and gone to three, and ranks in the top 10 all-time in the majority of major career passing categories, with plenty of individual accomplishments along the way, including multiple 500-yard games and a 5000-yard season, plus two six-touchdown games.
Your past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, however, and Pro Football Focus is taking a conservative view of what the Steelers should expect from Roethlisberger in 2020 as he returns from a season-ending elbow injury that limited him to six quarters of play in 2019.
In a recent article in which they sought to list each starting quarterback in the league by dividing them into tiers, he was included in Tier 3, which is defined as “volatile or conservative quarterbacks who will rely even more heavily on supporting cast and playcalling. Tier 3 quarterbacks can post top-10 production in any given year in the right situation”. Steve Palazzolo wrote of Roethlisberger:
We saw only one game from Ben Roethlisberger last season, and it was not his best effort — he graded at just 49.0 overall. In 2018, Roethlisberger put up big numbers, but his 75.2 passing grade was his worst since 2008, as he had the eighth-highest percentage of negatively graded throws in the league. The concern for Roethlisberger and the Steelers is his below-average performance in many stable metrics, including clean-pocket grade and passes thrown at or beyond the sticks.
On the positive side, Roethlisberger may have missed more throws than usual in 2018, but he still has the natural playmaking to move the ball down the field and put points on the board — something this offense lacked last season under Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges. Any time Roethlisberger is on the field, he’s capable of carrying a team and putting his playmakers in position to succeed, but there are also many signs from his 2018 and limited 2019 on-field play that are cause for concern.
Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson were the only quarterbacks who were included in Tier 1, while Tier 3 consisted of Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.
Roughly half of the league’s starting quarterbacks is included in the third tier, with 11 more making up the fourth tier, including the likes of Drew Lock, Gardner Minshew, Josh Allen, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. The article does not specify if players within each tier are ordered, but if it is, then it means that they believe Roethlisberger is slightly in the bottom half of the league. There is no other clear method of ranking, either by player or team name.