Pittsburgh Steelers legend and former quarterback Ben Roethlisberger recently shared his thoughts on the team ahead of the 2024 season on his podcast.
In his comments, he offered a critique of the Steelers' preseason approach with the offense and expressed his concern with the team's biggest weakness, the wide receivers room.
As far as the preseason was concerned, Roethlisberger said he would've liked to see the starters play more than they did in the preseason finale, when Russell Wilson saw just one drive and only threw two passes.
That's definitely understandable given how bad the unit looked the week before, and with all the time Wilson missed due to injury during training camp.
"If I'm going to critique the preseason... This last game, Russ played one series and they went and scored in like four or five plays," Big Ben said on his Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger podcast. "And that's awesome, but to me, that's such a small sample size. And one of them was like a 30-yard pass and a, I think, a 30-yard run. So, two of those plays were huge."
Roethlisberger said he felt the same way about the starting offense's reps during the 2023 preseason, saying the starters "should have maybe played more."
It goes without saying that the Steelers have a major concern at the wide receiver position after failing to pull off a trade with the San Francisco 49ers for Brandon Aiyuk. Roethlisberger shares that concern.
"My concern is what's behind George (Pickens) at wide receiver," he said. "Got a couple slot guys. Got some smaller guys that could do some really cool things. But, you know, you got rid of Diontae Johnson."
Thing would look a lot better if Pittsburgh had landed a proven No. 2 receiver. But that didn't happen and now the team is relying on Van Jefferson, who looked on his way out of the league in 2023. In the slot, Pittsburgh has Calvin Austin and Roman Wilson, both of whom are promising but unproven.
When it comes to the acquisition of Wilson, Roethlisberger was very much on board with the move, especially considering how cheap it was to bring him in.
"Thank you, Denver, for paying," Roethlisberger said. "Denver paid Russ like $38 million to go away... And we're like, OK, we'll take him. Thank you."
Wilson and the Steelers will hit the field to begin their 2024 regular season on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.
