Coming off a year in which he threw a career best 32 touchdowns (and 11 interceptions), the Pittsburgh Steelers made Ben Roethlisberger the highest paid player in the history of the franchise, inking him to a 8-year deal worth $102 million, $36 million in guaranteed money. Mark my words, the Steelers will end up regretting this deal.

Make no mistake, Ben Roethlisberger was at the right place at the right time when he left Miami of Ohio a year early and was taken with the 11th pick in the first round of

2004’s draft. He came onto a team that had most of the pieces already in place. They had veteran leadership in Jerome Bettis and Hines Ward, playmakers on the outside with Plaxico Burress and Antwaan Randle-El and a veteran offensive line. He came onto a team that was halfway there anyway. His only task was to not screw it up and his rookie season, he managed not to and they won the Super Bowl.

Since then, reviews have been mixed on Big Ben. He’s struggled with injuries and is interception prone at times but for the most part is an efficient, reliable starting quarterback in the league. He’s not Peyton Manning, he’s not Tom Brady, he’s not Carson Palmer but the Steelers sure are paying him like he is.

If  you’re a Steelers fan, you have to wonder how this will ultimately effect the rest of your team. The team has been very firm on how it pays veterans and has shown that it’s not afraid to let a beloved veteran walk (see: Joey Porter). But what does this mean for players like Troy Polamalu and Willie Parker and Santonio Holmes and Heath Miller when it’s time for them to re-sign? And perhaps most intriguing of all, what happens when it’s time to re-sign Hines Ward? The money they’re funneling into Big Ben will have long term consequences for this team as division rivals Cleveland and Baltimore continue to try to upgrade their teams through free agency. Meanwhile, this off season, all the Steelers have done is re-signed Big Ben through 2016 and let Alan Faneca leave.

What will 2008 hold for the Steelers and their new $102 million quarterback? Will it be another 32 and 11 year or will we see 2006 redux where Roethlisberger went 18 and 23? Steelers fans have 102 million reasons to be very concerned about the future of their franchise.

Steeler fans, apparently, are none too sure that this is a good deal for their team either. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a poll on their site that shows that nearly a third of the 1,100 people that have taken the poll believe the Steelers gave the quarterback too much.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am and is filed under Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Steelers, The NFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.