Ben Roethlisberger takes Steelers receivers and running backs on a trip to Georgia

In their quest to cover every aspect of the Antonio Brown trade saga, the national media devoted a considerable amount of time discussing the receivers issues with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. A litany of complaints that included claims that Big Ben would not workout with him during the offseason or invite him to his house.

On Wednesday, Roethlisberger hosted several of his offensive teammates on to trip to his lake house in Georgia, and to the surprise of no one, the story went largely unreported by the national press. Well, apart from an attempt by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk to spin it as “a late-career effort to bond with his fellow Steelers”.

As per the Instagram feeds of JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Conner and Tevin Jones, the group appears to have included several of the skill players on offense, a group that includes names like Xavier Grimble, Vance McDonald, Eli Rogers, Donte Moncrief and Ryan Switzer among others.

For those thinking that this is nothing more than a PR exercise on the part of Big Ben in an attempt to deflect from the criticism from Brown, it is perhaps worth noting that these are trips that Roethlisberger has taken with teammates a number of times in the past. Sometimes the party is made of of his offensive lineman, other times the receivers and running backs.

And while AB seems to have forgotten he has been on these trips himself in the past, this latest get together at Roethlisberger’s lake house looks rather similar to the one Brown took in 2015.