Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger says shoulder has been injured for several weeks

Among the hundreds of players’ names on respective injury reports for the 32 NFL teams last week, few (if any) listed three separate ailments under the “injury” heading of the status report.

Typically, the player’s name is accompanied by the one body part that has an issue preventing him from practicing fully. On rare occasions, two body parts separated by a slash.

Last week, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had an almost-unprecedented three injuries listed. Though he still played every snap in this past Monday’s win against the Chicago Bears — Roethlisberger has not missed a Steelers offensive snap this season — the quarterback was designated on the league-mandated injury report as having “Pectoral/Hip/Shoulder (Rt.)” injuries.

“Everything’s a little sore,” Roethlisberger said Wednesday prior to the Steelers’ first practice of a new game week. “You know, it’s just it’s football. We’re all banged up.”

Roethlisberger’s progression through the injuries in 2021 began three days after a Sept. 19 home loss to the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 2 when he was listed as having a the pectoral injury. Three weeks later, the “/hip” was added to the injury report in reference to Roethlisberger.

The “pectoral/hip” has endured over the past five weeks, with “/shoulder” added last week.

Roethlisberger said he did not suffer a shoulder injury during the Oct. 31 game at Cleveland nor in practice last week. He speculated it was during a home September game (the loss to the Raiders or defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals the next week).

“We just don’t tell you (in the media) everything,” Roethlisberger said with a smile.

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— PFF (@PFF) November 9, 2021

Roethlisberger completed 21 of 30 passes for 205 yards and two touchdowns in the Monday victory. According to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, he attempted just two passes longer than 15 yards downfield. Both were complete — however, the longest throw (42 yards) was badly underthrown and was caught after James Washington adjusted and ran back to the ball.

Roethlisberger said Bears defensive lineman Eddie Goldman got a hand on the ball as he released it, causing the “wounded duck” effect and leaving the throw short.

“The guy hit my hand,” Roethlisberger said, “and so the ball kind of fluttered and I was like,’ Just please get there, James.’ And he did. So that was a good adjustment by him.”

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