The Facts: For a minute this offseason, it appeared the Pittsburgh Steelers might actually move on from Roethlisberger given his high salary-cap hit. In the end, Big Ben took a $5 million pay cut to return for another year on a re-worked contract. During a chat with fans on Thursday, Steelers president Art Rooney II said the club wanted the 39-year-old back as long as the money worked. It didn't sound like performance was a question for the Pittsburgh franchise's president. "We wanted Ben back," Rooney said, via the team's official website.

Diehards Line:Rooney continued: "The key to it was to be able to restructure his contract in a way that allowed us to keep Ben and be able to sign some other players. ... I thought Ben had a very good year last year for somebody that was coming off of arm surgery. Hopefully, he will have an even better year this year with another year under his belt in terms of recovering from that arm surgery. It was a very serious surgery, and we were uncertain how well he would be able to recover from it. He did a great job rehabbing and we are excited to have him back for this season." Roethlisberger is coming off a season in which he completed 65.6 percent of his passes for 3,803 yards, his fewest in 15-plus games since 2008, with 33 TDs and 10 INTs. The Steelers got off to an 11-0 start, thanks largely to the defense, but the offensive inconsistencies finally caught up, as they went 1-4 down the stretch, including a playoff loss to rival Cleveland. With a diminished defense due to several big-name losses stemming from the salary-cap situation, Pittsburgh needs Big Ben to be better in 2021 to have any chance of returning to the postseason.