Big Ben To Steelers: "Get Me Some Tall Recivers!"

Ben Roethlisberger recently expressed a desire for the Steelers to acquire a tall receiver, which, at least to me, sounds rediculous. It made Hines Ward irate.

In Ben's defense, he didn't make the request in any kind of a way that was disparaging to the Steelers current receivers. In fact, he went out of his way to make the point that he liked them:

"I'm always going to ask for a tall receiver," Roethlisberger said in an interview with the Post-Gazette. "That's just me. Our receivers are unbelievable, but our tallest guy might be Hines. Or Santonio [Holmes]. Hines is going to say he's 6 foot, but he's 5-11."

That doesn't sound so inflammatory. But here are some of the things that Hines told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in response:

"I don't hear Tom Brady or Peyton Manning asking for that."

"I don't know, whatever he says. I have no idea. To me, it's a rare combination of receivers out there who are good and tall. We won a Super Bowl, we didn't have a tall receiver then. I don't see Tom Brady caring about who's tall or not. He got Randy this year, but he did it before without him.''

"To me, I have enough problems to worry about than what Ben wants -- I can't give him the contract. He wants a tall receiver? Why did we draft Santonio [Holmes]?"

What do you expect from a playmaker like Hines? Big Ben doing the "Our wide outs are too small" defense isn't exactly going to score brownie points with his receiving corps.

I'll say this for Ben: When he played alongside Plaxico Burress with the Steelers, Plax made a ton of plays for him. Any time Ben got in trouble, he'd scramble, and it seemed like he always ended up looking for Plax or Hines Ward downfield. They made a lot of plays that way.

This Quarterback-Wide Receiver dissention shows what's wrong with the Steelers. Big Ben is looking for a reason to show why they lost to the Jaguars. Ben would say "If I had a Wide Reciever the size of Yao Ming, I would never throw passes that were too high."

The request by Big Ben to grab a tall wide out is crazy. Hines Ward has every right to be upset with Big Ben. The decision by Big Ben to tell the Steelers to get him some tall receivers is right up there with the decision to ride a motorcycle without a helmet.