Ben Roethlisberger on Steelers' back-to-back losses: 'It's not the end of the world'

For someone who just shaved his beard, Ben Roethlisberger did his best Santa Claus impersonation Wednesday morning.

With gloom and doom surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers amid back-to-back losses that followed an 11-0 start, the freshly shorn quarterback spread some Christmas cheer ahead of his team’s last game before the holidays.

During his weekly video conference with reporters, Roethlisberger put a positive spin on his health, his uneven play and the Steelers’ prospects down the stretch as they try to clinch the AFC North title.

• He has no worries about his arm strength, his surgically repaired elbow or his ability to complete medium and long passes, which has been an issue for much this season. “My arm feels really good,” he said.

• He shrugged off a CBS Sports report the organization has a “greater concern” about the 38-year-old Roethlisberger’s knee injury, which has limited his practice time in recent weeks, as “phony.”

• He said his comments after the 26-15 loss at Buffalo about wanting to “hang it up” if he doesn’t play better were made out of “frustration,” and he is optimistic about his future as well as the Steelers’.

Roethlisberger also downplayed the losing streak the Steelers will carry into their game Monday night at Cincinnati. The consecutive losses are the first for the Steelers since they dropped three in a row — without Roethlisberger — to close the 2019 season.

“There’s a lot of outside noise and deservedly so,” Roethlisberger said. “We haven’t played well. We’ve lost two in a row. The fans are getting anxious. The talking heads are doing what they are supposed to do and talking bad about us and all that stuff. We’ve heard it and deserved it recently.

“What I tell guys and the mindset and the approach that I’m taking is it’s not the end of the world. We have three games left in the regular season. We have guaranteed ourselves a chance at the playoffs. We have three weeks now to get it going, to turn it around to give ourselves the best chance to reach our ultimate goal, which is winning the Super Bowl.”

The loss at Buffalo knocked the Steelers out of the top spot in the AFC and put them just a game ahead of the Bills for the No. 2 seed. A loss by Cleveland on Sunday night or a win by the Steelers 24 hours later against the Bengals would lock in the division title, a top-four playoff seed and at least one home game in the postseason.

That is sufficient time, Roethlisberger said, for the Steelers to get back to their winning ways.

“If we were starting the postseason tomorrow, maybe there would be a little more panic on our part, like we have to get something figured out right now,” he said. “We need to get it figured out now, but the good thing is, we know we have games after these next three. The teams we are playing are two divisional opponents and the third one (Indianapolis) is in the playoffs, too, mostly likely. What a great test for us to get some pre-postseason … work in by playing these last three games.”

The Steelers have lacked a strong finish the past two seasons. Before they dropped three in a row in 2019 to finish 8-8, they had four losses in a five-game stretch late in the 2018 season to finish 9-6-1 and out of the playoffs for the first time in five years.

“We still have some work to do to kind of get ourselves out of the lull that we are in because … every team has them,” Roethlisberger said. “It just so happens that ours is happening right now. But it’s not too late for us.”

Roethlisberger feels the same way about an offense that is No. 31 in rushing and is built around a quick-throw passing approach that teams have learned to defend. Roethlisberger said he is open to lining up under center more and running fewer plays out of the shotgun to make the offense less predictable.

“I don’t think we need to adjust drastically,” he said.

And, despite the frustration he displayed publicly after the loss to the Bills, Roethlisberger plans to be the one to lead the offense when the Steelers reach the playoffs.

“I’m going to go out there this week and give it everything I have to get this team back on track,” he said. “I feel it is a special team. I’m not going to sit here and talk about the end of the season because we know at the end of the season, you’ll talk about (the future). I’ll never just hang it up in the middle of the season, obviously.

“This team is special. The season is not over. I want everyone out there to just take a deep breath. I know it’s kind of crazy right now. I want everyone to take a deep breath. We’ve got time.”