Ben Roethlisberger 2018 stats:
Career high completions with 452 on 675 attempts for a completion% of 67.0%(3rd highest in his career) and over 5000(5129 career high) yards.

2019 injury: I can't find any article that tells exactly what the elbow injury was. The best I could find talked about the recovery being similar to recovering from Tommy John surgery. It was explained that a full recovery should be expected. With baseball pitchers recovery takes 12 to 18 months, but because QBs do not throw at full force and/or velocity every throw Ben's recovery should be shorter. Everyone in every article I read said it would be up to the doctors when Ben can actually return.

This information from many sources(look it up yourselves, I am not pasting all of them here) tells me that Ben IS expected to make a full recovery and that it would be out of the norm if he did not. The only question remaining is WHEN.

Ben has also been quoted that he fully plans to fulfill his recent contract extension through the 2021 season. So that means he does not plan to retire at this time.

Ben turns 38 this March and he will be starting his 17th season. That is OLD for pro athletes. There does come a time in every star athlete's career where the body just simply cannot do the things it has always done. This phenomenon has also been discussed at length by athletes themselves, sports writers, analysts, coaches, just about everyone has put in their 2cents on the subject. While every athlete is both similar and unique at the same time there will be a change of how they play the game. And for all of them it goes from playing from the neck down with athleticism and skills to playing from the neck up with experience and wisdom. This is why I have confidence that even a partial Ben is going to be good enough in 2020 to keep this team competitive.


Adam Schefter
✔@AdamSchefter





Ben Roethlisberger’s two-year extension is worth $68 million, and includes a $37.5 million signing bonus and an additional $30 million in injury guarantees, per source. Roethlisberger had one year at $12 millon left - and now has three at $80 million - $67.5 gtd.





Based on this it looks like Ben's guaranteed all but $12.5M of the $80M already. How does it benefit the Steelers to not bring Ben back and count on him to be the starter for the next 2 seasons? Talent-wise and money-wise Ben makes sense.