Tomlin Says Roethlisberger Appears the Same To Him

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin appeared on NFL Total Access on Tuesday night, and talked quite a bit about his franchise QB – Ben Roethlisberger. There’s been plenty of talk about Ben being a changed man after the issues he had in Georgia in March, with wide out Hines Ward saying Ben has been “night and day.”

While Tomlin says that Roethlisberger has been doing a good job of being a changed man, he doesn’t quite see that huge of a change in the QB that was on the market around draft time.

“I don’t view it as night and day, I probably have more of a personal relationship with Ben than some,” Tomlin said. “He appears to be the same guy, but I acknowledge that our relationship is probably the one he has with a lot of people. It’s based on truth, we deal with each other in that way, he’s dealt with this situation the way we hoped and would have expected him too, he’s taken it day to day, and he’s doing a nice job of it.”

Tomlin also spoke about the challenges in the QB and trying to figure out the problems going into working out a QB for the first four games and then putting Ben back in. He says there are some issues with Roethlisberger in terms of him dealing with the steps to getting back on the field.

“There are concerns, every step in this process is something that he has to deal with, something that we have to deal with,” Tomlin said. “There’s not a great deal of comfort, but that’s the nature of this thing.”

The other big question on the minds of Steeler Nation is the QB battle to start those four games, and right now Tomlin says that it’s still an open battle, and while Dennis Dixon did a nice job on Saturday night against the Lions, he will have to take the job from Byron Leftwich if he wants to be the starter opening day.