The Pittsburgh Steelers boast a playoff-caliber team if Ben Roethlisberger is healthy in 2020.
The 38-year-old quarterback coming off elbow surgery that ended his 2019 season after just two games reiterated to Ed Bouchette of The Athletic in a phone conversation Monday that he was ready for offseason workouts.
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"I was going to be ready to go for OTAs and the minicamps," Roethlisberger. "That was going to be the plan. Now I don't know how much I was going to do, I don't know if I was going to be doing team stuff or stuff like that, but I would have been definitely going to be out there ready to go."
The Steelers would have been scheduled to begin the offseason workout program on April 20, along with all other teams that didn't hire new coaches. In previous years, OTAs usually started in mid-to-late May, with mandatory minicamps in June. With the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering NFL workout programs for the time being, Big Ben said he's slowed the aggression with which he's been preparing.
"Now that we don't have those (practices), we took a step back and backed up a week,'' Roethlisberger said. "We said let's just make sure and slow it down some more and take it even a step slower. It's going really, really well, though.
"The doctor is very ultra-conservative moving forward. We're just trying to be smart, and putting the brakes on me a lot because I was kind of 'Go, go go.' You know me, trying to get back out there."
Roethlisberger added that he's been working out and throwing at his home in Pennsylvania. His pigskin tossing sessions include footballs with microchips that can record data, much like the ones teams can use during practices.
"It's neat to have those tools because in your own mind you say, 'Ok, that felt 50 percent, that felt 75 percent.' I mean you can do that but it's hard to really tell," he said. "We have this data and it's making it easier and making it able to read these throws. Pretty much every throw we have data on. Right now I do like a 20-throw warmup at 10 yards and then we back up and we do 10 throws at 15, 10 throws at 20, 10 at 25 yards. I'm throwing it right now off the numbers and data, probably right around 60 percent. That's just me choosing to be at that number. I know I can let it go and throw, but what's the point, why? There's no reason to throw as hard as I can right now."
Roethlisberger noted he would have been good to go full-bore had the offseason been as originally scheduled.
"Oh, yeah, absolutely," he said. "My plan was to be out there doing individuals, doing one-on-one routes during OTAs and minicamps. That obviously is not going to happen. But if I was ready then, I'll be ready when it's time."
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