That the needle dropped when the quarterback departed was no coincidence.

“You’ve got to respect what he wants,” Darrius Heyward-Bey said. “He’s not here, it’s party time.”

There’s an unwritten rule in the Steelers locker room that Roethlisberger works to protect — no blaring loud music during core business hours.cheap nike nfl jerseys wholesale

Players cultivate a casual, laugh-heavy atmosphere each day, but from 8 a.m. until post-practice showers between 3 and 4 p.m., musical silence is black and golden.

Roethlisberger says the Steelers’ setup has been this way since he arrived in 2004 and veterans such as Alan Faneca and Brett Keisel kept the speakers off.

Now, at 36, Roethlisberger is upholding the tradition, though he’s not trying to be the get-off-my-lawn dad.

“That’s one of the reasons they invented headphones, so you can listen to your music,” said Roethlisberger with a laugh. “If you want to listen to music, that’s no problem, we just don’t want to have to hear it at other people’s lockers. It’s just kind of always been that tradition and we try to keep it going.”cheap nfl jerseys china nike

Roethlisberger occasionally enforces the rule with teammates, either in person or via his long-distance connection.

“Usually I’ll send AB [Antonio Brown] a text on the other side of the locker room,” Roethlisberger said. “I’ll be like, ‘AB, music.’ He’ll look down and say, my bad. It’s pretty funny. We have fun with it. He’ll say like, it’s Vinny [Williams] or somebody else. It’s usually done in fun. It’s not really serious. But I try to keep that tradition alive.”

Players don’t need Roethlisberger to formally address the team about the music, Heyward-Bey said. The rules are understood, and players get a feeling about how things should be.