It's been 14 years since the Steelers drafted Ben Roethlisberger 11th overall. The plan, as the legend goes, was that Pittsburgh planned to take an offensive lineman but chairman Dan Rooney, still lamenting the team's decision to pass on Dan Marino back in '83, prompted a change of heart. Big Ben was the pick, which turned out to be great news for just about everyone in the organization not named Tommy Maddox.

Maddox, who had started 11 games in 2002 and helped the Steelers to the playoffs, was also under center for all 16 games in '03 when the team slipped to 6-10. He was under the impression the Steelers were targeting an offensive lineman and when they instead drafted his replacement ... well, he was understandably upset.

But he didn't publicly complain about his fate. He took it. And even though he was the starter to begin the 2004 season, a Week 2 elbow injury paved the way for the Roethlisberger Era, one that continues to this day. Maddox dutifully wore his baseball cap and held his clipboard for the remainder of Big Ben's rookie season and again in '05 as Pittsburgh won a Super Bowl. He was released in March 2006 and never played in the NFL again.

Which brings us to Roethlisberger's recent comments about the Steelers' 2018 third-round pick, quarterback Mason Rudolph. General manager Kevin Colbert said the team considered Mason a first-round talent and taking him in Round 3 was a no-brainer. But he also added that there was no rush to get him on the field because Roethlisberger, even at 36, is still one of the league's best players.

Big Ben, meanwhile, wondered aloud if the Steelers would have been better served using that third-round pick on someone who could help the team now, and also joked that he wasn't going to go out of his way to mentor the man hired to replace him.

Maddox, who knows all too well what Roethlisberger is going through, expects the Steelers' future Hall of Famer to welcome Rudolph as a teammate even if he's not happy about the circumstances that brought the young quarterback to Pittsburgh.

"I think Ben will treat him with respect," Maddox told ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler. "His No. 1 goal is to get ready to play and help the team be successful. I've heard a lot of people say he owes it. That kind of gets into a little bit of a slippery slope. His job is to win football games right now. But, with that said, I think everybody in the locker room, the more it gets along, the better this team is going to be. ...

"Everybody's going to handle things differently," Maddox continued. "I'm not going to sit here and say I think Ben owes it to him to [mentor]. I think all of us, when you're playing, you owe it to your teammates to be respectful and do what's best for the team and all that. I don't think it's a situation where Ben owes it or that's his job or whatever. But it is his job as a leader of the team to lead the team and make sure there's no distractions."

Roethlisberger, who toyed around with retirement after the 2016 season, said after the Steelers drafted Rudolph that he now intends to play 3-5 more years. Rudolph, to his credit, has said all the right things.

"If I was Ben, I'd probably say the same thing," he said last week. "He's a competitor. Obviously, he has a lot of confidence in himself, like I do. Yeah, he's going to be a future Hall of Famer and I would expect him to say that. So I'm just looking forward to going in there and learning the system, competing, raising my level of play, preparing like I'm the starter even though obviously I won't be the starter. And just waiting and being prepared for whenever I get my time whenever my time comes, to be ready and take advantage of it."

So if Big Ben isn't going to be the dispenser of wisdom, what advice does Maddox have for the rookie? "Be yourself, go about your business, do the things that you need to do," he said. "Kind of control what you can."