Feb. 15, 2026, 1:50 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Joey Porter<\/a> isn’t the only former Pittsburgh Steeler<\/a> firing shots at the legendary Ben Roethlisberger<\/a>, as cornerback Steven Nelson just took aim at the future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n On a recent episode of the Corner Suite Podcast, Nelson blamed Roethlisberger for his own contractual issues with Pittsburgh, which he claims had a lasting impact on the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cI was upset because [the Steelers] let Ben dictate keeping that roster together, moving forward,” Nelson said<\/a>. “That\u2019s why I was upset. They didn\u2019t kick me out of Pittsburgh, they tried to trade me. They tried to trade me. And they tried to make me take a pay cut for who? Big Ben. A guy that was declining in his career.”<\/p>\n Nelson then said it was “no knock on Big Ben,” but continued to blame Roethlisberger’s contract situation for ruining a “great team” and the long-term quarterback instability that resulted soon after.<\/p>\n “The team was more interested in appeasing Big Ben and doing whatever Big Ben was,” Nelson said. “To me that was just selfish and negligent. You had a good young team right there. You had a great team that was meshing really well and you sabotaged the whole mother f—— thing for one person. You want to know why the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> had struggles with finding a quarterback for the long-term solution? It’s ’cause that 2019 and 2020 situation happened.”<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Roethlisberger would, however, take a pay cut in March 2021 to keep the Steelers as competitive as possible.<\/p>\n Nelson’s criticism of the Steelers’ succession plan for Roethlisberger is one that many fans have shared for years, directing much of their frustration at Mike Tomlin for failing to develop and\/or find their next quarterback.<\/p>\n For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including any offseason moves, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 15, 2026, 1:50 p.m. ET Joey Porter isn’t the only former Pittsburgh Steeler firing shots at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[942,73,75,74,29044,38167,543,2173,2533,648,2514,8757,14298,544,54754,535],"class_list":{"0":"post-114964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-pittsburgh","10":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","11":"tag-pittsburgh-news","12":"tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","13":"tag-sstsnsteelers","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagnfl","16":"tag-tagnfl-hub","17":"tag-tagoverall-negative","18":"tag-tagpittsburgh","19":"tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","20":"tag-tagsmg-timely","21":"tag-tagsports-news","22":"tag-tagsteven-nelson","23":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}