Wide Ben’s wife: 2019 offseason exhausting on marriage

PITTSBURGH — When Ashley Roethlisberger obtained the resolution from her husband at halftime of the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ Week 2 game against Seattle final season, she straight knew something used to be unsuitable.

“He in no draw calls me all over halftime when he’s playing,” Ashley acknowledged in a newly launched mini-docuseries detailing Ben Roethlisberger‘s damage and avenue wait on to the self-discipline. “As rapidly as I noticed the phone call, I realized that he wasn’t going to cross wait on in the game.”

In the predominant episode of the series, “Bigger than Ben,” Ashley opens up in regards to the toll the tumultuous 2019 offseason had on her marriage along side an internal peer at her husband’s damage. The docuseries, created by Mango Dragon Productions, launched its first episode on YouTube on Wednesday morning.

“Final year’s offseason used to be potentially one in every of potentially the most anxious offseasons that we bear had in our marriage,” acknowledged Ashley, referring to the criticism Roethlisberger confronted after the departure of Antonio Brown and the tumult that ensued as of us spherical the league admonished Roethlisberger for his facing of the locker room. “Personally, there were disappointments. Professionally, I be conscious criticism is portion of the job. I web that. I wish it wasn’t, but I web it. But final year looked diversified.”

Ashley, who married Roethlisberger in 2011, acknowledged getting to coaching camp used to be a reduction for the quarterback and the team, but that used to be short-lived after the unexpected death of broad receivers coach Darryl Drake in August 2019. Bonding over their faith, Roethlisberger had an off-the-self-discipline relationship with Drake, and used to be enormously tormented by his death.

A month later, Roethlisberger’s season used to be derailed even extra as he grasped his arm after making throws in the predominant half of of the Week 2 dwelling opener against Seattle.

Ashley first noticed something used to be off with Roethlisberger’s arm in the Steelers’ final force earlier than halftime. The Steelers were running an up-tempo, no-huddle offense and she noticed him hang his elbow after about a throws.

“In actuality, at the birth, when he grabbed his arm, it did no longer abolish me frightened that he if truth be told injured his arm,” she acknowledged. “To me, at the birth, it signified he’s if truth be told hurting. I feel, that made me sick to my abdomen attributable to I knew he wasn’t going to cease. I knew he used to be going to withhold going and I would possibly presumably search how injurious it used to be hurting.”

Ashley acknowledged her brother used to be staring at the game from dwelling and texted her announcing the analysts were talking about Roethlisberger’s arm.

When the quarterback came off the self-discipline after the Steelers’ final force, Dr. Jim Bradley, the team’s longtime doctor, did about a preliminary tests and told Roethlisberger he would no longer allow him to cross wait on on the self-discipline. Following extra evaluation at halftime, Roethlisberger known as his wife to let her know what used to be occurring.

Standing of their laundry room with the phone on speaker after a postgame MRI, the pair obtained a call from Bradley later that night informing Roethlisberger that he ripped three of 5 flexor tendons off the bone.

“I would possibly presumably no longer if truth be told think that,” Ashley acknowledged.

After hearing the suggestions — both to no longer bear surgical treatment but in no draw play soccer again or bear predominant surgical treatment to realize wait on to the self-discipline — Ashley told her husband she understood if he mandatory to retire.

“I told him that I was finest going to affirm this one time,” she acknowledged. “I mandatory him to listen to me and trace my words, no longer going to bring it up again, but if he felt voice material where he used to be with the profession that he’s had and it be on his heart to appropriate be accomplished, I’d reinforce him 100% in that. He would no longer must danger about my feelings in all that. I’d like what he desires. I was most continuously appropriate handing him permission to retire if that is where his heart used to be and I was going to augment him in that.

“And he listened, and likewise you would possibly presumably disclose he if truth be told took it to heart and thought. And he acknowledged, ‘Thank you, but I produce no longer feel accomplished. I’m no longer accomplished.'”