{"id":756932,"date":"2026-02-16T23:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/756932\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T23:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:09:16","slug":"former-steelers-all-pro-defends-ben-roethlisberger-amid-joey-porter-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/756932\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Steelers All-Pro defends Ben Roethlisberger amid Joey Porter comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The past week and a half have been nothing but a whirlwind with controversy surrounding Joey Porter Sr., Ben Roethlisberger, and the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Porter went after Roethlisberger and James Harrison for criticizing Mike Tomlin this season. He went as far as saying that Roethlisberger is a \u201cbad teammate\u201d and is a \u201cbad person\u201d too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Former Steelers offensive guard David DeCastro defended his former teammate on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201dEveryone\u2019s entitled to their opinion,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/podcast\/the-fan-morning-show-e0897\/episodes\/david-decastro-reacts-to-porters-comments-about-ben-tomlins-departure-dcebe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DeCastro said on 93.7 The Fan<\/a>. \u201cI guess, negativity seems to sell these days, but I loved playing with Ben, for Ben, protecting him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A two-time All-Pro and six-time Pro Bowl selection, DeCastro spent all nine years of his career with Roethlisberger from 2012-2020. He made the Pro Bowl in his final six years and still resides in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">DeCastro complimented Roelisberger\u2019s fight and competitiveness on the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI just loved his energy,\u201d DeCastro said. \u201cBen\u2019s the ultimate competitor, no matter what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Fellow teammates Maurkice Pouncey and Zach Banner also defended Big Ben over the last week, while others have criticized the two-time winning quarterback. Other current and former Steelers supported Porte,r taking shots at Roethlisberger and Harrison for talking badly about Tomlin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cPeezy talking that talk,\u201d former Steelers safety Mike Mitchell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While some Steelers players may be trying to defend Tomlin, the appearance is that they are also taking shots at Roethlisberger. This is the most vocal we have seen former Steelers talk about their teammates in years, taking shots at each other on social media and podcasts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It feels very anti-Steelers. But the reality is, not everyone got along on the 2005 Steelers Super Bowl XL winning team, and it likely won\u2019t be the last time we hear about teammates complaining about one another, despite some of its history occurring in Pittsburgh 20 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past week and a half have been nothing but a whirlwind with controversy surrounding Joey Porter Sr.,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,520,57,6416,2374,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-756932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers-commentary","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers-news","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116082833314317490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}