Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s not exactly a joke, more like a smirk the collective football world seems to be having for much of the offseason when they talk about Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. It goes like this: “Big Ben has had a great career, but he’s, you know, big, so he must be out of shape. And after last season, he’s obviously finished.”
Sometimes it’s couched in a compliment, such as CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin writing the other week that Ben, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady are all dead solid locks for the Hall of Fame, but starting Big Ben’s write up with, “Roethlisberger hasn’t necessarily aged as gracefully as Brady and Rodgers.