Bradshaw can relate to pressure on Big Ben

Saturday, November 11, 2006
By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


As an NFL analyst, Terry Bradshaw can only speculate how it must feel to have been in a head-rattling motorcycle accident, require an emergency appendectomy and get knocked out of game with a concussion -- all within a span of four-and-a-half months.

As a former player, he knows that a quarterback doesn't fumble kicks, miss tackles, fail in coverage or get flagged for excessive celebrations or other stupid penalties in an un-Super season.

But as the only other starting quarterback not named Ben Roethlisberger to win the Lombardi Trophy with the Steelers, he also knows first-hand that the quarterback of a football team in a football town attracts more scrutiny than anything else when its record conjures up images of chumps rather than champs.

"I think the world of him. I admire his talent. And you can't put it all on his shoulders. It's everybody. It's everything -- the entire team, the coaching staff," Bradshaw said of the Steelers' 2-6 record. "But he is finding out the other side of being a quarterback -- people asking questions, people pointing fingers."

Bradshaw will be outside Heinz Field for tomorrow's game between the Saints and the Steelers, along with the Fox NFL Sunday road show cast of Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. That group can boast of 10 Super Bowl rings, three Hall of Fame busts and nine Emmy awards.

It comes as no surprise to Bradshaw that the focus of the media, fans and talk-show callers is whether Roethlisberger, who has steadfastly insisted that he is fine physically, came back too soon from his maladies.

"This poor child has been through hell in a hand basket. He's fortunate to be alive," Bradshaw said in a telephone interview before heading to Pittsburgh.

"Ben is the only person who can say if he's healthy. As far as I'm concerned, it's important to have a quarterback who wants to play, to be on the field, even if he's hurt. It tells your offensive linemen and everybody else on the football team that you're a tough [dude] and that you're tough enough to play through it."

Holding him back could even be counter-productive.

"It's like a racehorse," Bradshaw said. "The minute you put the bit in his mouth and pull back on reins and get him thinking or scared, that's worse."

Bradshaw isn't the only member of the Fox team to weigh in on Roethlisberger and the Steelers. In a conference call earlier in the week, Johnson and Long said they expect him to fight through the adversity of losing six of his seven starts.

"I don't think the Steelers rushed him, but Ben may have rushed it," said Johnson, who used the word "bizarre" to describe the quarterback's string of medical issues. "Now that we're at this point, Ben has to play though it. I think Ben's going to be fine."

Long agreed.

"I've never seen a player have to deal with so many things," Long said. "But I like the way Ben has handled himself. He has not played well in some games, but there have been glimmers. I think he's going to come out on [the] other side of this thing.

"He didn't just become a bad quarterback overnight. You have to take a step back and look at the whole picture. There have been individual breakdowns in different situations, people trying to do more than they're supposed to. We've seen uncharacteristic things by the Steelers, as a whole."

Steelers football is less about gaudy passing yards and more about power running, ball control, tight defense and protecting the ball on special teams.

"One thing you don't want to see is Ben throwing 50 passes a game," Bradshaw said. "That's just not Steeler football. Pittsburgh is not about great statistics. Pittsburgh is about winning football games. They'll work their way out of it and rediscover what makes them a great football team."

In the 23 years since he has been out of the game, Bradshaw took the initiative to mend fences with Chuck Noll and the city, a concession that even the glory days had their share of contentiousness.

Now, he's gone out of his way to extend a public olive branch to Roethlisberger over the motorcycle issue. Ten months before the accident, Bradshaw told an interviewer that he felt motorcycles are dangerous and that Roethlisberger could ride all he wanted after he retired.

"I was driving down the interstate one day and a guy on a motorcycle passed me. About 3 miles down the road, I came across this accident scene and the paramedics were peeling him off the pavement. It was the most sickening thing I ever saw in my life," Bradshaw said.

"I hate them. I know they are dangerous. That's Terry Bradshaw's opinion. It's not a universal opinion. I understand that some people get a thrill out of riding them. But I think Ben got the impression that I was throwing him under the bus because of my comments. I don't throw anybody under the bus. I was asked a question, and I answered it.

"I never said an unkind thing about Ben. I really do think the world of this kid."

(Robert Dvorchak can be reached at 412-263-1959 or at bdvorchak@post-gazette.com.)