The Pittsburgh Steelers were coming off of a bitter, frustrating loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game when we first heard about Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger supposedly mulling retirement.
While he ultimately did not retire, he spent the next couple of years only claiming that from this point forward he would take things a year at a time and reevaluate where he is every offseason, in order to determine whether or not he believes he can or should continue to play.
That changed this offseason when the Steelers gave him a substantial new two-year contract extension.