Former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Steven Nelson still holds a grudge against the organization for letting him go after the 2020 season due to cap issues. And he blames one player for why he was released, none other than future Hall of Fame quarterback Ben Roethlisberger . He thinks Roethlisberger sabotaged the team with his bloated salary.
The Steelers had a stacked defense in 2019 and 2020. But we're unable to retain key players like Nelson, slot cornerback Mike Hilton and outside linebacker Bud Dupree in 2021. The Steelers were strapped financially due to the league-wide revenue droppings because of COVID-19.
"So that defense, what I'm about to say is that it fell off tremendously after Ben's cap issue. If people really want to know why I was upset. it's because the defense — I just rattled off how great that defense was," Nelson said on latest episode of his podcast The Corner Suite . "You had me, Joe Haden , Minkah Fitzpatrick , Terrell Edmunds , Mike Hilton in the slot — great blitzer, instinctive player, on the smaller side, but a great player, great tackler.
"You had Cameron Sutton as a role player. [He] could play inside corner, could play outside corner, can play dime, can play safety. He's a Swiss Army knife. You got T.J. Watt , Bud Dupree, Stephon Tuitt at the time; Cameron Heyward . We just drafted a young Alex Highsmith . We had Robert Spillane , we had Mark Barron , who was at the end of his career, but still a capable player. We had just drafted Devin Bush in the first round.
"I was upset because they let Ben dictate keeping that roster together moving forward. That's why I was upset. They didn't kick me out of Pittsburgh. They tried to betray me, they tried to trade me, and [then] they tried to make me take a pay cut for who? Big Ben, a guy that was declining in his career."
Nelson made it clear that he wasn't attacking Roethlisberger, more so how the organization handled the situation.
"This is no knock on Big Ben, that's not what I'm saying. So for context, I was saying the team did not look out for the team's best interest," Nelson said. "Moving forward, the team was more interested in appeasing Big Ben and doing whatever Big Ben wanted. To me, that was just selfish and negligent. You had a good young team right there, a great team that was meshing really well, and you sabotaged the whole thing for one person. They let one guy sabotage the entire organization."
Nelson's brutally honest comments come on the heels of former Steelers outside linebacker Joey Porter Sr. ripping Roethlisberger, claiming that he was a bad teammate and not a good person.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Former Steelers Cornerback Rips Big Ben: 'Let One Man Sabotage Entire Organization'
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