His team has lost two consecutive games, and his personal statistical performance thus far during December has been the worst of any month this season.
But Ben Roethlisberger insists any regression he is having is not related to a physical ailment.
The Pittsburgh Steelers franchise quarterback refuted a national report about his balky knees as “phony.” He said his 38-year-old, surgically repaired arm “feels really good.”
“Typically, this time of year my elbow would be feeling worn down, and I don’t feel that right now,” Roethlisberger said during a video conference call with media Wednesday. “So I am very encouraged by that.”
After throwing an interception during just two of the first nine games of the season, Roethlisberger has thrown at least one during each of the past four. His two during Sunday’s loss at Buffalo appeared to result, in part, from inadequate arm strength.
Roethlisberger has tended to throw short passes all season long, but his yards per attempt over his past four games has plummeted to 5.48 from the 6.79 he posted over Weeks 1-10.
Roethlisberger, though, downplayed age and/or a tired arm after 2019 elbow surgery as reasons for the late-season struggles. He said he is in communication with Steelers medical and training staff members in an effort to monitor his load management.
“Just because (the arm/elbow) feels so good, you don’t want to push it so much that you end up just kind of falling off that cliff or you go downhill right away,” Roethlisberger said. “It might not be slow decline. It could be a big falloff, and you want that to happen at the end of February and not right now.
“Right now, my arm feels really good. And we want to continue that, so that’s how we approach every week is to just kind of (monitor) how it feels and how I can express that to the people around me.”
Roethlisberger also addressed a CBS report that said the Steelers are concerned about a knee injury that has flared up since a game at Dallas last month. Roethlisberger said the knee flared up during a loss to Washington nine days earlier but he is not experiencing issues coming off Sunday’s game on the artificial surface in Buffalo.
“I’m 38 years old. I’ve played (NFL) football for 17 years … (but) other than just an old knee and arthritis, my knee actually feels pretty good,” Roethlisberger said. “That report to me is just one of those phony kind of things people make up.”
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