On Saturday evening, the Steelers announced that they were placing quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on the reserve/COVID-19 list. As a result, Roethlisberger will miss the club’s game against the Lions this afternoon.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, the 39-year-old passer self-reported COVID symptoms to the team and subsequently tested positive for the virus (Twitter link). As Mark Maske of the Washington Post tweets, Roethlisberger is vaccinated, so he is eligible to be removed from the COVID list as soon as he returns two negative tests taken 24 hours apart. That gives him a good chance to suit up for what could be a critical bout with the Chargers next Sunday.
For today, QB2 Mason Rudolph will get the nod in Roethlisberger’s place (Twitter link via Rapoport). Rudolph, a 2018 third-rounder, has not played a significant snap since Week 16 of the 2019 season — he started a meaningless Week 17 game last year — and he boasts a 5-4 career record as a starter, a record that is accompanied by a subpar 82.7 career quarterback rating.
However, if the Steelers could pick a game for Roethlisberger to miss this year, today’s matchup would probably be the one they would pick. The 0-8 Detroit outfit is ranked in the bottom quarter of the league in terms of yards allowed per game, and next-to-last in terms of points allowed per game. Plus, Rudolph does get regular opportunities to run the first-team offense in practice, so Pittsburgh should not need to limit its playbook in any way.
The Steelers have won four in a row to bring themselves squarely into the AFC playoff picture. During that streak, Roethlisberger — whose early-season struggles prompted speculation about his job security — is averaging over 200 passing yards per game, has thrown six TDs, zero interceptions, and has posted a 104.6 QB rating (h/t Aditi Kinkhabwala of the NFL Network on Twitter).
Give the ball to N Harris! I need serious points in fantasy.
How many fantasy points were scored in that Samford / Florida game yesterday?
They need an offensive line first.
Truth be told, the Steelers should win this one even if they had Ben Stein at quarterback. And kudos to Ben for self-reporting his symptoms and thereby hopefully not infecting others on the team and in his circle of family and friends.
See: Jaguars/Bills and Dolphins/Ravens for cautionary tales about games that teams ‘should win’. And, don’t forget that the Ravens needed a miracle FG to beat these Lions. On any given Sunday, ya lnow?
Oh I know, believe me. I have the alcohol and antacids on stand-by for this one.
Still makes 0 sense why the league tests unvacvinnated daily but tests vaccinated players every 2 weeks or so. Exhibit A: vaccinated player catches covid and gets sick. Possibly spread it to people before symptoms appeared.
Roethlisberger self reported symptoms. Meaning the NFL dumb policy wouldn’t have detected this.
You would think a QB would have quite a contact tracing list. I wonder who else on the team they tested when they found out.
You’d think everyone on a football team would have an extensive list, including not just their own teammates, but all the opposing players and coaches from the previous week’s opponent, whom they hugged, exchanged jerseys with, and so on.
With that, I don’t understand why players don’t refrain from these unnecessary interactions, or teams strongly discourage it (even forbid it, if the league or cba allow that).
Vaccinated people can catch and spread Covid? I am absolutely shocked. We were told by our great leader that this was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Looks like he was wrong on this like everything else. Once again I’m shocked.
Over the summer, it was thought that unvaccinated people were dying at a rate of 11 to 1 compared to vaccinated people.
But, it’s hard to get accurate numbers in real time. We now have the updated figures.
40 to 1.
By all means, risk death because vaccinated people test positive and occasionally have mild symptoms. It’s your right.
40-1 are you telling me that vaccinated people are less likely to transmit Covid than unvaccinated people?
You do know that people like me have a survival rate of about 99.8% right? You do know that vaccinated people are catching covid, transmitting it and dying from it right? I will continue to live my life doing things I love to do doing it the way I love to and you can wear three masks, stay isolated and not live normally. That is your right. Have fun.
You need to read something outside Facebook. You lack simple basic understanding.
Tim, if that was to me, I’ve never been on Facebook and never will be.
Tim, what basic understanding?
I do find the little editorial comments placed by the writers such as “However, if the Steelers could pick a game for Roethlisberger to miss this year, today’s matchup would probably be the one they would pick. The 0-8 Detroit outfit is ranked in the bottom quarter of the league in terms of yards allowed per game, and next-to-last in terms of points allowed per game.” not helpful and ignorant. Obviously, Rory was wrong.