Roethlisberger eager to learn where offense is headed
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Ben Roethlisberger: Says he was shocked by firing of Arians
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Todd Haley has been hired, has met with his new colleagues on Mike Tomlin's coaching staff and members of the Steelers front office, and he finally met with the media Thursday.
But he still has not talked to the man who makes that offense go, and they likely won't meet until next week.
"I haven't talked to him," quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said Thursday morning at the Steelers training facility an hour before Tomlin introduced Haley as his new offensive coordinator.
He is eager to do so and anxious about what Haley wants to do with the offense. Roethlisberger also has done some research of his own.
"I've gotten a lot of calls and texts and emails from people around the league, both good and bad about him," Roethlisberger said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Everybody has an opinion, as we all know, and they're letting me know what their interaction with him was -- good, bad and indifferent. I've heard a lot of things and I'm looking forward to meeting him and forming my own opinion."
Roethlisberger admitted he was "shocked" when he learned Bruce Arians was not offered a contract renewal as offensive coordinator. He said Tomlin had kept him in the "loop" about his search for Arians' replacement, although he had no input into who that would be.
Now, Roethlisberger is anxious about what offense Haley might run -- whether he will chuck the Steelers playbook that has evolved from Mike Mularkey to Ken Whisenhunt to Arians in favor of his own, whether he will maintain the Steelers offense, or whether there will be some type of meshing of the two.
Haley was not definitive about his offensive plans at his news conference, just that he would "start with a clean slate."
"It would probably be easy for him to do," Roethlisberger said about Haley possibly introducing a new offense to the Steelers. "I don't know if it would be easy for us to learn it. We're so young on offense and the most-talented room in this whole building is probably wide receiver, no disrespect to anyone else. And they're also really young.
"They're still the tip of the iceberg in this offense and they did as well as they did last year. And they're just getting to the point that 'OK, this makes sense to me.'
First Published February 10, 2012 12:00 am
