Joey Porter Sr. set Steeler Nation ablaze on Wednesday morning with his highly critical comments about Ben Roethlisberger on Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast. Porter apparently isn’t alone in his thinking. Several of Roethlisberger’s former teammates backed him in the comment section on social media. Most notably, longtime backup QB Mason Rudolph.
“Go off,” Rudolph wrote with a bullseye emoji, letting him know his comments were on target.
Here are some of the comments via the Not Just Football Instagram page.
Rudolph and Roethlisberger never had a strong relationship dating back to when he was drafted. The longtime franchise QB wasn’t happy with the Steelers using a third-round pick on a quarterback when he felt they should have continued building the team around him.
In 2023, Rudolph told the Steel Here podcast that he was never close with Roethlisberger.
“I wouldn’t say we were close, but he did his job,” Rudolph said. “He had a job to do. He had a team to lead. And I get that. There were plenty of times where he would answer questions that I had.”
By all accounts, Rudolph is a pleasure to have in the quarterback room. He grew extremely close with Aaron Rodgers this season, for example.
Some quarterbacks choose to pour into the next generation, like Aaron Rodgers with Will Howard, while others don’t. That’s not completely unheard of around the NFL. But Porter’s comments went beyond that, and Rudolph—along with several other former Roethlisberger teammates—have thrown gasoline on the fire.
Former Steelers OG Kevin Dotson added emphasis with a “!!” emoji, while former OT Zach Banner added “I can’t wait to say something about this.”
Former S Mike Mitchell wrote “Peezy talking that talk,” while STs ace Tyler Matakevich added “Peezyyy.”
Perhaps the most direct of all, former OT Mike Adams wrote “Amen! Hold them boys accountable. Ben talkin shit about anybody is comical.”
The clip covers other topics, so it’s impossible to say if all of the comments were directly about Roethlisberger. But that was the crux of what Porter communicated and the most newsworthy portion of the podcast.
It feels like Porter said the quiet part out loud with a portion of Roethlisberger’s former teammates feeling the same way.
When Mike McCarthy was hired, there were hardly any reactions from current or former players on social media. Within hours of Porter’s comments going public, we already have several notable reactions. By the time you read this, there will probably be more that I haven’t covered.
The unfortunate part of the entire situation is that Roethlisberger didn’t say anything that bad about the team to warrant this type of response. He wondered if it was time for Mike Tomlin to move on, but he wasn’t anywhere near the level that James Harrison was on his podcast.
Porter criticized Harrison too, but it seems as if several former Steelers were looking for an excuse to call Roethlisberger out.
At the very least, Porter’s comments didn’t land in a vacuum. Fair or not, the speed and volume of former teammates rushing to co-sign them suggest there has long been unresolved tension.