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Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger contemplated retirement in the offseason. Few believed it. Former teammate Willie Colon did.

“I got to sit down and talk to him and one thing he told me is he did take it seriously,” Colon said last week on PFT Live. “He’s dealt with a lot of injuries.”

Asked Tuesday by reporters about the comments from Colon, Roethlisbeger laughed and said (via Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com), “What, did you think I was lying?”

Regardless of whether he did or didn’t take it seriously (if he’d retired, Roethlisberger would have owed the Steelers $18.6 million), he has decided to recommit, at least for 2017.

“I’m here,” Roethlisberger said. “I’m here on Day One. You see me out there taking every rep I’m supposed to take and then some. I actually took some of the rookies today. I’m 110 percent committed like I said I was.”

So how close did he come to retiring?

“Doesn’t matter,” Roethlisberger said. “I’m here now.”

He’ll be there until he isn’t, and it will be a one-year-at-a-time proposition until he decides in an upcoming offseason that he’s done. Next year, the price for leaving drops to $12.4 million. The next, $6.2 million. Come 2020, he can retire with no financial obligation to the team.