Ben Roethlisberger was cruising along with his carefree youth and goofy grin, living the great life of a star NFL quarterback.
His rookie year was like no other in NFL history. A 13-0 record as a starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The all-time rookie record in completion percentage and passer rating. Big Ben was king of the Pennsylvania hills.
His second year was even better. He fell backward, yet made a heroic tackle to save the day in a playoff game against heavily favored Indianapolis. Standing strong, as only a 6-foot-5, 241-pound quarterback can, against a relentless Broncos blitz in the AFC championship game, Roethlisberger delivered a performance worthy of the NFL Films vault, completing pass after third-down pass.
He didn’t play well in Super Bowl XL, but his Steelers won and his improvisational scramble one way and long throw the other was a big reason.
Commercials, a pretty professional golfer for a girlfriend, a $40 million contract, a Super Bowl ring, a sandwich after his own name, fast motor-cycles – it was all there for Big Ben. It just may have been the most successful start ever to an NFL career.
Through it all, the football gods seemingly observed quietly with arms crossed, letting it all go.
Until this year, when Roethlisberger not only was humbled, but punished with repeated blows.
A motorcycle accident before training camp. An appendectomy before the season opener. A concussion before the Oakland game. Interception upon interception. Welcome, Big Ben, to glory’s dark side.
“Things always happen for a reason, I firmly believe that,” Roethlisberger said Wednesday during a conference call with the Denver media. “It’s tough, you set the bar so high your first couple years, the expectations are always going to be up there. You’re always going to go through these stretches. I’ve talked to so many great quarterbacks these last couple weeks and they say you’re always going to have these stretches and this isn’t going to be the last time. It’s just part of the game of football.”
The next football game for Roethlisberger is Sunday against the Broncos at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field. Each team has gone separate ways from last season’s AFC title game. The Broncos at 5-2 are following a similar path from last season, sandwiching a five-game winning streak between losses.
The Steelers have strayed to 2-5 and Roethlisberger has been blamed for leading them there.
“With Ben, we’re seeing his first failures,” said Michael Irvin, an NFL analyst for ESPN and a former Cowboys wide receiver. “He’s been on a heck of a ride since the day he took his first snap. How does he handle it now? Greatness is not what you do, but what you wind up overcoming.”
The game of football didn’t start becoming difficult for Roethlisberger until he first encountered the difficulties that randomly strike in the game of life. He rapidly recuperated from, first, his motorcycle injuries, then his appendectomy. But his poor play in his first three games – seven interceptions, no touchdown passes – had Steelers fans wishing he had taken more time.
Finally, Roethlisberger started playing like the Big Ben of old – or rather the Roethlisberger of so very young. In back-to-back games against Kansas City and Atlanta, he threw five TD passes with no interceptions.
Then his stop-and-go season slammed into another obstacle. Knocked loopy with a concussion late in the Atlanta game, Roethlisberger returned last week, without taking time off, to disastrous results. The Steelers lost to the lowly Raiders 20-13, a defeat for which only Roethlisberger was to blame. Of his four interceptions, two were returned for touchdowns.
“I don’t know whether Big Ben will be the same this year,” said Tom Jackson, a former Broncos linebacker and Irvin’s ESPN partner. “What Ben went through was a life-changing experience. If someone told me it would be a full year, I don’t think that’s out of the question. But fans, coaches and owners tend to be impatient. When I talk to people about Ben, I say, ‘If the same thing happened to you, how long do you think it would take before you fully recovered?”‘
The fear in Pittsburgh is that there’s no time to spare. The Steelers must win eight of their final nine games just to finish 10-6, a record that didn’t get Kansas City into the playoffs last season.
Roethlisberger, it seems, picked a bad year to have a bad year. After the departures of running back Jerome Bettis to retirement and wide receiver Antwaan Randle El to salary cap considerations, the Steelers are depending on Roethlisberger more than ever.
“They loved to have those gadget plays and the threat of them kept the defenses off balance,” said John Madden, an NBC analyst and former coach. “Now, without Randle El, they don’t worry about the trick plays and without Bettis they don’t pick up the short yardage on goal line and their biggest thing is the passing game.”
And the Steelers have never been about the pass. Even in the heyday of Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, the Steelers got 1,000 yards rushing from both Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier in the same 1976 season.
“What’s their identity on offense?” said former Bears coach Mike Ditka. “You knew what their identity was on offense a year ago. They’d pound the football on you, play good defense and throw the football maybe 20, 25 times a game. Now they’re throwing the ball 34, 35, 40 times. And besides, they’re not blocking well up front and Roethlisberger is only human.”
It is supposed all humans experience highs and lows. Roethlisberger had enjoyed more highs sooner than any previous NFL quarterback. But when life’s lows got him, they got him good.
“Success is a great thing and a dangerous thing,” said Irvin, who experienced his own pratfalls from fame. “You have to manage success. It’s human nature when you have a little success to pull back a little bit. Little things. Maybe you’re not doing the extra things you used to do because, hey, you’re at the top of the mountain and you want to enjoy it.”
Or maybe, the game of football, like the game of life, just wasn’t meant to be easy.
Battered Big Ben
A look at the three major physical setbacks Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has experienced the past four months and how they may have affected his play:
1. Broken jaw, lost teeth, facial fractures and lacerations from June motorcycle accident. Injuries reduced strength and hurt offseason preparation; criticism for not wearing a helmet caused emotional wounds.
2. Appendectomy four days before first game. Recovered in time from accident to start the season, but emergency surgery forced him to miss the opener. Again, he was physically weakened and lost his passing rhythm.
3. Concussion 11 days ago. A final blow. Roethlisberger played great in back-to- back games, but a blow to the head not only didn’t let him finish the Atlanta game, it may have led to poor decisions during a four-interception loss at Oakland.
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com.
