Steelers Actively Trying to Trade Ben Roethlisberger

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Pittsburgh Steelers are reaching out to teams in the top 10 of the draft to see if they’d be willing to send their pick to Pittsburgh in exchange for Ben Roethlisberger.

“Pittsburgh has begun contacting teams to trade Ben Roethlisberger for a top 10 pick,” Schefter tweets. “At least one team considering it. Story far from done.”

It’s going to be a hard sell now that Roethlisberger has been suspended for six weeks with a slim possibility of returning to action after only one month if he satisfies Roger Goodell’s requirements. Getting teams to part with their first-round pick is difficult enough without asking them to get a suspended quarterback in return.

But, according to Schefter, there’s at least one team considering it. So who could that be?

The Rams are probably going to Sam Bradford and are reportedly not interested in Roethlisberger. The Lions just drafted Matt Stafford, so they’re out. The Buccaneers took Josh Freeman, the Redskins traded for Donovan McNabb, and the Seahawks just traded for Charlie Whitehurst and still have Matt Hasselbeck.

But the teams picking seven through 10 could all make a play for Roethlisberger. The Cleveland Browns, Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, and Jacksonville Jaguars are all in the market (reportedly) for a quarterback, so it comes down to how highly they value Roethlisberger as a quarterback and, maybe more importantly, as a person.

Out of those four teams, the Raiders and Bills are probably the most likely candidates to land Roethlisberger. Both teams were reportedly interested in acquiring McNabb, so it stands to reason that they’d be interested in a quarterback five years younger than McNabb.

Roethlisberger, in my humble opinion, doesn’t possess the skill-set that McNabb has, but the Raiders and Bills could disagree and be more willing to part with picks for Roethlisberger than McNabb.

But like Schefter said, this story is far from over.