“It’s nice to go through a practice, go through a game, do things around the house, pick things up, dry your hair off with a towel, and not feel that pain.” — Ben.





From Sam Farmer, L.A. Times:



For the past few years, uncertainty has swirled around Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. With two Super Bowl rings, and having built a solid case for the Hall of Fame, he routinely has flirted with retirement.

But after his 2019 season was cut short by a serious elbow injury, the type that would end most careers, Roethlisberger has roared back with relentless determination.

“I just didn’t feel like I was done,” Roethlisberger, 38, told The Times by phone this week. “It would have been a lot easier to hang it up. But I just really felt like I had something left. I really want to win another Super Bowl, and have my kids be out there to appreciate it with me.”

He said the biggest driving factor was the team, and specifically the outstanding offensive line and defense the Steelers have built. Pittsburgh, which plays host to the Houston Texans on Sunday, is 2-0 with victories over the New York Giants and Denver Broncos.

“I told the guys before the first game, `I didn’t have to have the surgery. I chose to have it because of you guys, because of the team,’” he said.

That surgery was to reconnect flexor tendons in his throwing arm, which had weakened over the course of his career and finally ruptured when he was throwing against Seattle in Week 2 last season. Famous for his toughness and high pain threshold, Roethlisberger first shook his hand as if to wake it up, then looked like a wounded animal as he clutched his arm and wincingly walked off the field.

Done for the season.

There are five flexor tendons that run down the underside of the forearm, from the elbow to the hand, and they are integral to moving the fingers and grip, as well as bending and turning the wrist. In Roethlisberger’s case, three of the five tendons tore loose from the bone.

Dr. Neal ElAttrache, world-renowned orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute, rebuilt his elbow and — along with Steelers doctor James Bradley — helped oversee the quarterback’s tenuous, year-long recovery.

“What the injury and recovery did was it turned the […]