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This fantasy football season there will be a ton of reliable starting quarterbacks to target in the middle of the draft. One of these mid-round quarterbacks to avoid this season though is Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger recently had arthroscopic surgery on his knee to clean it out. He claims that it is as good as new, but considering that he had the procedure on June 5, he could be limited in the first couple weeks of camp. If he was going to have a procedure to clean out his knee, it probably would have made more sense to do it months ago.
Another debilitating aspect of Big Ben’s fantasy value is his propensity to get injured every season. The quarterback has been in the league for nine years, but he has only finished a full 16-game season once in his career. He has missed eight games over his last three seasons and will most likely miss at least one game in 2013, so why take a shot on a guy that is already slotted to miss time.
Roethlisberger also lost two of his primary receiving threats. WR Mike Wallace went to the Miami Dolphins via free agency, while TE Heath Miller is still recovering from a torn ACL. The duo was the team’s two leading receivers and combined to haul in 1,652 yards with 16 touchdowns. People may overlook these staggering statistical loses, but it will certainly have an effect on the former Miami-Ohio quarterback in Week 1.
Even more concerning is the fact that Roethlisberger has one of the worst offensive lines in front of him in all of football. The quarterback has been sacked an insane 344 times in his nine-year career, a number that would make even David Carr cringe. Roethlisberger is consistently getting injured, but most of the injuries can likely be blamed on the fact that 300-pound lineman are getting free shots at the franchise signal caller. After all, it is hard to throw the ball from your back.
Roethlisberger has also thrown over 4,000 yards just twice in his career. He has also thrown over 30 touchdowns just once in his career. Those seem to be the benchmark stats for current fantasy quarterbacks nowadays and Roethlisberger has simply fallen behind the curve.
In one quarterback leagues there are plenty of other quality quarterbacks to trust on a weekly basis (Eli Manning, Tony Romo, or Andrew Luck) and I would much rather pencil in one of those guys as opposed to Big Ben.
Adam McGill is the Senior Fantasy Sports Writer at Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @adammcgill83, like him on Facebook, or add him to you networks on Google here or here.
