Saturday, February 07, 2009
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Matt Freed/Post-GazetteSteelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger tries to get to the podium after defeating the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.
Too much of this week's psychic cool down from Super Bowl XLIII has been spent Reconstructing Roethlisberger, trying to wedge the professional definition of someone who is not 27 into impractical parameters Big Ben himself partially helped to define.
No. 7 spent too much of the previous week in the fully audible hope that he wasn't as bad as he was in Super Bowl XL, as though that might be some kind of consolation prize for a fan base that I don't think would be walking around today saying, "At least Ben's passer rating jumped into the 40s," had the Cardinals won, 28-6.
But I can't hear anymore about how Roethlisberger's master performance in hoisting the Steelers to an unprecedented sixth Super Bowl victory "erased" his performance in Pittsburgh's fifth Super Bowl victory.
If it did, well, that's a shame.
Shall we re-visit Detroit?
No, seriously.
On Pittsburgh's first possession, false-start penalties by Heath Miller and Max Starks presented the jittery 23-year-old quarterback with a third-and-19, the first of seven third downs he failed to convert. Eight others, he converted.
Though he failed to complete five consecutive passes in the first half and started out 2 for 8 with an interception, that kind of stretch still somehow defines his day around here four years later. But look at what happened from that point forward.
Down, 3-0, to the Seattle Seahawks and facing third-and-6, Ben scrambles and flicks a shovel pass to Hines Ward for a first down, whips a 20-yarder to Cedric Wilson at the Seattle 22, and stalks backward when Miller's offensive-interference penalty sets up third-and-28 at Seattle's 40. Ben drops back, flees left almost to the sideline, dances in place like a kid who'd waiting too long to go to the bathroom, and nails Ward with a cross-carpet pass at the Seattle 3. When Jerome Bettis can't get in from the 3, can't get in from the 2, Ben got in airborne from the 1.
After Willie Parker's 75-yard run made it 14-3, Ben threw his second interception, this one a red-zone blunder that Kelly Herndon ran back all the way to the Steelers' 20, setting up the only Seattle touchdown. In response, Ben enables the famous gadget play, pitching to Parker headed left, and turning to face blitzing strong safety Michael Boulware crashing off Seattle's left flank. As Parker hands the ball to Antwaan Randle El crossing the carpet in the opposite direction, Boulware is waiting for Randle El ... until Ben knocks Boulware, a converted Florida State linebacker, cleanly out of the way.Randle El to Ward, 43 yards, touchdown, megawatt smile, iconic photo, 21-10, cut to a beaming Bill Cowher, but there is still 8:56 to play. On the next possession, Ben helps the Steelers chew 4:15 off the clock, hitting Randle El with a 7-yard completion on third-and-6, then running for three on third-and-3. Ballgame.
Is that the kind of performance anyone would want to erase?
"I played a little better than I did last time," Ben said after securing his second Lombardi Trophy. "It's really special to be able to come back on that last drive, probably a drive that will be remembered for a long time, at least in Steelers history."
Not if the amnesia that enshrouds Super Bowl XL is any indication, but at least Ben won't have to say he hopes he plays better than he did against the Cardinals, whose hearts he exploded into shards over two desperate minutes that framed Pittsburgh's last possession.
"We thought we were going to be world champs," said Arizona linebacker Karlos Dansby. "We had the opportunity to be great, but we didn't get out and finish. We didn't finish it."
To punctuate his fifth pro season, Roethlisberger ran or passed for every inch of the 88 yards he pushed Pittsburgh across in 109 seconds, his final act a pass only perfect enough to elude three Cardinals in the right corner of the end zone, to sail over the heads of 6-foot-2 Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie and 6-2 Aaron Francisco, to fly just beyond the reach of the leaping Ralph Brown II and into the hands of Santonio Holmes at the only spot on earth a catch might have been possible.
It was like throwing the ball into a fedora behind a stand of young pine trees.
Of course, the next thing you'll hear on the squawk shows is that he underthrew Nate Washington in the first quarter and probably wasn't as funny on Letterman the next night as Steve Martin. In fact, he'll probably have to get back on Late Night just to erase that performance.
Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com. articles by this authorFirst published on February 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
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