Mike Tomlin refrains from celebrating Ben Roethlisberger’s career ahead of what is likely his final home game

Barring the unforeseen, Monday night’s game against the Cleveland Browns will be Ben Roethlisberger’s final home game as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback. For the first time, Roethlisberger’s family attended an away game during last Sunday’s loss to the Chiefs. Roethlisberger has reportedly asked several of his former teammates to be at Monday’s game against the Browns. 

Publicly, Roethlisberger has deflected questions about his future while remaining focused on the task at hand, which is helping Pittsburgh (7-7-1) figure out a way to get into the playoffs for a second straight year. Like Roethlisberger, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is focused on the present while politely declining to wax poetically about Roethlisberger’s career, at least for the time being. 

“I’ve experienced 15 years of Hall of Fame-caliber play as it pertains to Ben,” Tomlin said during Tuesday’s press conference. “My focus and his focus this week is this game and preparing for this game and performing well in this game. I’m sure there will be an appropriate time in the future where I will get an opportunity the sing his praises, and I will gladly do so. It just doesn’t feel like the appropriate time as we zero in this opportunity that is ‘Monday Night Football’ this week.” 

As far as the present is concerned, Tomlin acknowledged that the Steelers offense has not been good enough at the start of games. The Steelers offense has gone five consecutive games without a first-half touchdown, a stretch of futility that a Pittsburgh offense has not experienced since 1940. 

“We could score in the first half,” Tomlin said with a laugh when asked how his offense can end its first-half scoring drought. “That’s what our intentions are. That’s our intensions every week, but we’ve come up short. I’m not going to run away from that. It is what it is. I’m not going to try to explain it away. We could sit in settings like…