Ever since Antonio Brown made his trade demand public following the season, many have called him a locker room cancer. Others claim that organization favorite Big Ben the real root cause of Pittsburgh’s drama.
One of Big Ben’s former teammates – reserve running back Josh Harris – not only agrees that Roethlisberger is a bad teammate, but also claims he intentionally fumbled a hand off to get back at former offensive coordinator Todd Haley in a 2014 game against the Bengals.
2014 week 17 we were playing the bengals. Todd Haley called a run play with very little time left in the game. Ben wanted to kneel. He rolled his eyes in the huddle. He then purposely fumbles the ball. I had to recover it. At that moment I knew what kinda person he was.
— The Bishop (@JoshHarris25) March 10, 2019
The play in question occurred with the Steelers up 10 with a minute to go in the fourth quarter, and Cincinnati with only one timeout remaining. According to Harris, Roethlisberger was pissed off in the huddle that Haley called a running play instead of taking a knee to run out the clock. On the next play, Big Ben fumbled on a bad handoff to the fullback, and later blamed the near turnonver on miscommunication with the sidelines. The problem is everyone in the huddle at the time heard a running back run play called, including the fullback who got the botched exchange.
Harris thinks Roethlisberger fumbled on purpose to get back at Haley, and dissected the play on Twitter to explain why he believes there is no other reasonable explanation. It’s hard to say definitively that Ben botched the handoff on purpose, but watch Harris make his case and decide for yourself if he has a point or is just a bitter ex-teammate with an axe ot grind.
— The Bishop (@JoshHarris25) March 11, 2019