Gene Collier: All's well, Big Ben's ticking again

Monday, October 16, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

So that right there, that reasonably familiar brilliance you saw all over the North Side lawn yesterday, that was a perfect example of what's wrong with Ben Roethlisberger.

Nuthin'.

All right, maybe not a perfect example, because the mathematical definition of perfect in Ben's professional discipline is a 158.3 passer rating. This meticulous Roethlisbergerring of the Kansas City Chiefs shook out at 153.8 in football's extra-logical, quasi-goofy numerology, but as a work of high athletic art it was not a grace note short of masterful.

Leading a wounded Steelers team into an urgent episode in what until yesterday had been a fairly wobbly defense of its Super Bowl title, Roethlisberger had absorbed not only the responsibility for the immediate fate of the club, but four months' worth of ominous speculation about his health, focus, sensibilities, capabilities, karma, and even a small but swelling batch of give-us-Charlie Batch blather.

"I think sometimes Ben tries to take too much on his shoulders," Bill Cowher said 10 minutes after this team leaped back into the AFC North race. "He probably tried to do too much too fast. It was good to see him have some success. He's worked through it. He's taken a lot of criticism in the last couple of weeks. I've been very proud of him and the way he's been accountable.
"He stood up to it all, and that's been true with our football team."

Roethlisberger might have stood up to it before this had he been able to stand up in the pocket at all, which was not often the case, especially last week in San Diego, where he looked skittish in his set-up. That happens sometimes after the defense throws you on the floor half a dozen times.

"When you protect this quarterback," Cowher said, "he's pretty good."

Maybe you've noticed, but it's hard to notice that you've noticed through all your oh-my-gawd, sky-is-falling, Ben-bashing caterwauling.

In his first three starts post-appendectomy post-offseason reconstructive face surgery, Roethlisberger scared up only two plays of greater than 25 yards, the Steelers' own standard for defining big plays. Yesterday, he authored three lethal big plays in the space of eight sizzling throws. His second pass, a precise little flip into the right flat, got turned into a 50-yard play by Santonio Holmes. His sixth went 47 yards down the middle for a Nate Washington touchdown. His ninth found Hines Ward floating in a broken coverage near the back of the Kansas City endzone.

In the time it took Ben to go 8-for-his-first-9, the Steelers led 28-0.

"It was important for us to come out and really get it going early," Roethlisberger said. "We really started making plays. We moved down the field really well; I was really happy to be on the same page with the receivers and that we really got things cooking. I'm not sure how many times we punted today, but I don't think it was too many."

The Steelers punted only once before they stretched the lead to 45-7, and then only because Roethlisberger's arm was bumped as he unloaded a deep ball to Washington on Pittsburgh's second possession, and Washington still got his mitts on the resultant underthrow.

"I told Nate on the bench, 'Listen, I'm going to come back to you,' " Roethlisberger said, " 'and next time you're not just going to make that catch but you're going to score.' "

Two offensive snaps later, Roethlisberger pump-faked to his right, faked a draw, and threw a laser to Washington streaking near the Kansas City 20, where he got a perfunctory bump from rookie safety Jarrod Page on his way to a touchdown.

"He did a great job; I've got to commend him," said Washington of Ben. "He did a great job tonight making his reads and just playing with so much confidence."

Just as he didn't lose the last three games alone, Roethlisberger didn't beat the Chiefs by himself. He got tremendous protection of two varieties, the brutish efficiency of an offensive line even as it functioned with substitute right guard Chris Kemoeatu, and the protection a quarterback is afforded when the featured running back is piling up 109 yards like Parker. But even given those precepts, No. 7 was simply fabulous. He completed 16 of 19 for 238 yards, and for the first time this year, no interceptions.

The key there? "Throwing to the guys in the black jersey," Ben cracked, "not the white jerseys. I found the guys that were open."

Though no one would say it aloud, an electric sense of relief crackled through the Steelers' organization with Big Ben's big Sunday.

Asked straight out if he's "back," Roethlisberger demurred.

"Not yet; I won't say that yet. I felt good out there today, though. I felt like things were really clicking well. I'd love to feel this way every week."

So why not just say, "I'm back?"

"Not my style," he said.

Or maybe it was just the fact that he didn't think he'd been gone. And maybe he's right.

(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283. )