Steelers QB just rolling with punches of his position
Hard to believe he's only 25.
Ben Roethlisberger has packed a career's worth of drama into three short years. He became Pittsburgh's starting quarterback the first month of his first season in 2004 and didn't lose his first game until the conference championship.
A year later he became the youngest quarterback to start in the Super Bowl.
He crashed his motorcycle in 2006, lost his appendix days before the season started, and finished the year with more interceptions than his first two seasons combined.
"He's seen about everything that this profession has to offer," Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said. "That creates a maturity in him that you can't manufacture in a 25-year-old guy."
He's a franchise quarterback who has received kudos and criticism. He lost a conference championship the season he went 13-0 and won a Super Bowl in a game his QB rating wasn't much bigger than his shoe size. He has been praised, he has been panned, and he has taken it all as just part of the position he plays.
"That's part of your job title," Roethlisberger said. "To take the scrutiny."
He is a quarterback cut straight out of American myth. He's 6 feet 5, with broad shoulders, a big arm and enough confidence to shrug off last season's 23 interceptions and come out firing darts. Roethlisberger, whose Steelers face the Seahawks today, began this season by throwing four touchdown passes in Pittsburgh's opener.
He has that quarterback essence even when he's not playing football. He started at point guard for his high-school basketball team, then went to college at Miami of Ohio with an understanding that it's the offensive line to which a quarterback must ingratiate himself, not the wide receivers.
That's why Roethlisberger was at his assistant head coach's house one snowy afternoon, fetching sleds that Jim Wachenheim's children used. Roethlisberger was taking his linemen sledding down at the park. Dan Marino bought his linemen Isotoners; Roethlisberger brought his to icy slopes.
Roethlisberger played wide receiver as a high-school junior because the coach's son was starting at quarterback. Miami noticed him at a summer camp and foresaw big things, but the coaches got worried after Ohio State came courting in the middle of Roethlisberger's senior year. When it came time to announce a decision, Roethlisberger said he was sticking with the school that had been with him from the start.
He played on the scout team his first year at Miami, and during a seven-on-seven drill he rolled out on a bootleg, gliding with that long gait that's faster than it appears. Suddenly he whistled a pass behind a linebacker's ear before the defender could raise an arm.
"He's special," Wachenheim said. "I just think about the wow factor."
Roethlisberger also possessed that unflappable personality that great quarterbacks possess and opponents lament. He wasn't rattled if there was a pass rusher in his face or a linebacker on his tail.
"It was a subliminal confidence," Wachenheim said. "He was always so composed in the pocket."
In person, too. Roethlisberger knows that no quarterback's career is all sunshine and lollipops.
"You know you're going to have bad seasons," he said. "You know you're going to lose games. It's going to happen if you can have a long enough career in this league. It's more frustrating knowing that I could have played better."
And so he came out the first game of this season and matched a career high with the four TD passes. New head coach. New offensive coordinator. Same old young guy under center for the Steelers.
"A guy who has been there and done that," Tomlin said. "And that's what makes him unique."