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 Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette |
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  Big Ben Moments: 10 games that shaped a quarterback
Bronco's Jake Plummer will be sticking with his new look (at least for now)
Steelers heartthrobs learn to live with racy fan mail, adulation
Readers react to Denver columnist calling Pittsburgh "butt ugly"
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 John Beale, Post-Gazette |
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Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger takes a break during practice at his team's South Side training facility yesterday. | |
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 Jetta Fraser, Toledo Blade |
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Roethlisberger on the practice fields of the Findlay Trojans in 1999: Who knew how far he'd go? | |
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 Matt Freed, Post-Gazette |
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Roethlisberger applies the season-saving "Death Grip" to cornerback Nick Harper in Indianapolis Sunday, a move that helped contain the threatening Colts. |
Before there was an improbable and heart-stopping playoff victory in the home of the top-seeded team in the AFC playoffs, there was a memorable and pulsating victory at the home of the Napoleon Wildcats, a game that ended with an equally stunning shift in emotion.
Before there was a debut in Miami, before there was a winning drive in Jacksonville and a comeback in Dallas and a perfect game against Tennessee, there was a game as a high school senior that is still talked about in Findlay, Ohio. Even if half the town didn't stick around to see what transpired at the end.
And before there was the tackle that saved the season, the tackle that stopped an opportunistic cornerback from bringing an inglorious end to a season that continues to resonate with life, there was the Death Grip, a preseason drill in which all the quarterbacks at Findlay High School, including Ben Roethlisberger, spend one day learning how to tackle. Just in case they might need it one day.
"It was absolutely incredible," Cliff Hite said the other day, and he wasn't referring to Sunday's 21-18 victory in Indianapolis in which his former quarterback at Findlay pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent playoff history. Rather, he was referring to the game in Roethlisberger's senior season in which Findlay trailed, 28-24, with 33 seconds remaining in a game at Napoleon (Ohio) High School.
"The Findlay fans were leaving the stadium, leaving in droves, because they thought the game was over," said Hite, the Findlay coach. "One of the assistant coaches came up to me and said, 'You better think of two plays because we only have time for two plays.' We had no timeouts left."
Thirty-three seconds? Plenty of time for Roethlisberger.
Hite called two pass plays -- Vandy and Cougar -- and gave them to his quarterback, who was starting at his 33. Roethlisberger executed the first to perfection, throwing a 28-yard pass to receiver Mike Iriti down the left sideline. The Trojans were going to use the same formation on the second play, but Roethlisberger decided to have Iriti line up on the right side this time.
When the Wildcats blitzed up the middle, Roethlisberger threw a 39-yard strike to Iriti down the right side of the field for a touchdown, giving Findlay a numbing 31-28 victory.
Only 1.4 seconds remained on the clock.
"That's why nobody understands it," Hite said. "Everyone has said, 'Hey, if Ben doesn't make that tackle in Indianapolis, the game is over.' And I said, not if Ben gets the ball back. Because we've seen him do it."
The Pied Piper
Time has been running out for Roethlisberger and the Steelers since Dec. 4, after a home loss to the Cincinnati Bengals punctuated a three-game losing streak and put the season on temporary notice. And the quarterback from Findlay has never flinched.
He has been a little of everything and everybody in the six victories that have led the Steelers to their third AFC championship game in five years, orchestrating an offense that has suddenly become the most potent and diverse in the NFL.
In Cleveland, in a 41-0 shutout victory on Christmas eve, he looked like Dan Marino, throwing passes so deft, so accurate, that a defensive back couldn't afford to turn his shoulder, let alone his back.
In Indianapolis, he was the best quarterback on a field that included Peyton Manning -- NFL passing leader, single-season touchdown record-holder, future Hall of Famer -- setting a tone from the very first series that his teammates followed as if he were the Pied Piper.
Now Roethlisberger heads to Denver, where Broncos fans are accustomed to another No. 7 who won big games with big plays, already armed with as many playoff victories as Manning and looking more and more like John Elway, a clutch performer who produced grandiose moments.
Since 1970, no quarterback -- not Marino, not Elway -- has made it to the conference championship game in each of his first two years in the league. But here is Roethlisberger, bucking that trend and leading the upstart Steelers (13-5) into a 3 p.m. game Sunday against the No. 2 seed Broncos (14-3), the first time a sixth seed has made it to a conference championship.
"We are going to be able to go as far as he's going to take us," coach Bill Cowher said. "I'm not trying to put any pressure on him. That's the facts, and he likes that, he knows that."
Cowher passed the leadership torch to Roethlisberger several weeks ago, before the season finale against Detroit. And since then, the quarterback has done nothing but embrace and relish his role.
He threw three touchdowns passes and ran off 24 consecutive points in the 31-17 playoff victory in Cincinnati, a game in which he posted a passer rating of 148.7, his highest since the season opener against Tennessee (a perfect 158.3).
Against the Colts, he was nothing short of sensational, completing seven passes in a row after an early drop by Antwaan Randle El and leading the Steelers to a 14-0 first-quarter lead.
"I have no problem with that," Roethlisberger said. "I want to come out and make sure I take care of the things I have to do. As a quarterback, naturally, if you do that, if you don't turn the ball over and do the things you're supposed to do at the quarterback position, you give yourself and your team a better chance of winning the game."
To illustrate how much they believe in their second-year quarterback and how much he has developed since his rookie season, the Steelers would not have asked Roethlisberger last year to do what he did against the Colts -- even though he was 13-0 as a starter.
They would not have asked him to throw seven passes on 10 plays in the first series, or 12 passes among the first 20 plays in a playoff game. Not in the toughest -- certainly loudest -- road venue in the league. Or against the top-seeded team in the AFC playoffs.
But they did, and Roethlisberger looked so unlike the quarterback who threw five interceptions in last year's playoff games.
"Maybe I would have asked him," said offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt. "But I don't know if I would have felt this comfortable asking him.
"He's been saying for a year he wanted to do more of that, and he's getting better at it. He's a very good one to have that on his shoulders."
Said wide receiver Hines Ward: "I don't know if it would have happened last year because we were trying to take more pressure off him. That's what you got to do. In the playoffs, you can't sit there and be conservative. You got to be aggressive. You can't try to not lose the game; you got to try to win the game."
Foreshadowing a winner
Winning is something Roethlisberger does very well.
He is 25-4 since becoming the starter in Week 3 last season, after Tommy Maddox was injured, and he is 3-1 in playoff games.
What's more, Roethlisberger is the only active quarterback who is unbeaten (13-0) in career games in which he has thrown 20 or fewer passes, according to Stats LLC. And he is 21-0 in games in which he has attempted 25 or fewer passes, a number padded by playoff victories against the Bengals and Colts.
"I'm trying to be better prepared for everything thrown my way and making sure mentally that I'm sharp," Roethlisberger said. "I feel a lot more confident, but that's because I feel confident in the guys around me. And I think they're more confident in me."
It wasn't always that way. After Maddox was injured in Baltimore last season, forcing Roethlisberger, then 22, into the starting lineup, guard Alan Faneca was asked if it was exciting to see the team's No. 1 pick play quarterback.
"Exciting?" Faneca said. "No, it's not exciting. Do you want to go work with some little young kid who's just out of college?"
But in his first start in Miami, a game that was delayed seven hours by Hurricane Jeanne, Roethlisberger foreshadowed what was to come when he threw a perfect 7-yard touchdown pass to Hines Ward with 6:16 remaining to ensure a 13-3 victory against the Dolphins.
The Steelers thought they had a player who would take the city by storm when they drafted Roethlisberger with the 11th overall pick. And they were right.
"The pass he made to Hines in Miami, that was something nice," Faneca said. "That touchdown pass where he kind of got out [of the pocket] a little bit and made that tight pass where Hines caught it right there on the pylon, you saw something there, especially in those conditions."
Now, 16 months later, he has overcome even more difficult conditions in Cincinnati and Indianapolis, lifting the team on his shoulders and taking them for a wild road trip through the playoffs.
"I don't look at him as a young quarterback, to be honest," Cowher said. "He's been doing this for two seasons. To me, he has earned that trust."
The bonus
On the first day of training camp at Findlay High School, Hite always conducts a drill in which he teaches his quarterbacks how to tackle. He lies on the ground, pretending to be the quarterback, and reaches up and grabs a player's jersey.
"I tell them, anything better than this is a bonus," Hite said.
Hite said he calls the drill the Death Grip.
"I always tell the quarterback, we don't want you to make a big tackle, just get in his way, trip him, do whatever you have to do to get in his way," Hite said.
And there was Hite, immediately recalling the Death Grip, when he saw Roethlisberger tackle Colts cornerback Nick Harper at the Indianapolis 42 after Harper ran 35 yards with a Jerome Bettis fumble at the goal line. If Roethlisberger doesn't make the tackle, the Steelers might not be on the precipice of a second Super Bowl appearance under Cowher.
But, like he did that September night at Napoleon High School, Roethlisberger saved the day in the final minute.
Only this time he didn't throw a pass.
"I'm just a little disappointed he didn't give me credit for the tackle," Hite said.
He was laughing when he said that.
After all, he's seen Roethlisberger do it before.
