INDIANAPOLIS -- Long after his broken jaw, orbital bone and nose healed from a near-fatal motorcycle accident, Ben Roethlisberger felt the effects of the trauma on the football field, his former offensive coordinator said.

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Ken Whisenhunt, now the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, believes -- in hindsight -- that Roethlisberger's June 12 accident coupled with his Sept. 3 appendectomy caused the quarterback to become gun-shy for most of last season.

"I just saw physically in the pocket there were some things you could just sense he wasn't as confident [about] as he was the year before," said Whisenhunt, speaking yesterday at the NFL's annual Combine workout session for 326 college prospects. "A lot of that I think was because of recovering from the injuries and having some doubts of whether he was 100 percent healthy or not."

It is the first time someone from the Steelers' staff last season acknowledged that Roethlisberger was affected on the field from his injuries off of it. Whisenhunt, however, noted they did not feel that way last September.

Roethlisberger played in all four preseason games after overcoming the accident in which his motorcycle collided with a car in Downtown. He was set to play in the Sept. 7 opener against Miami, but the appendectomy sidelined him for that game.

He returned to start Sept. 18 at Jacksonville and did not miss another game, even after his concussion Oct. 22 at Atlanta.

It was by far his worst season of three in the NFL. Roethlisberger threw for 18 touchdowns and 23 interceptions -- three more than in his first two seasons combined. His passer rating of 75.4 was 23 points below his combined rating of his first two seasons.

Roethlisberger reported to training camp on time and immediately threw himself into all of the team's practices and drills and said he felt fine. Doctors passed him medically to play, and he started the first preseason game in Arizona Aug. 12.

"When we started the season, even in training camp, it didn't seem like it would have an effect," Whisenhunt said. "But, at the end, and when you look at it again, I am convinced it did. Not because of his health, he is a tough kid and he did a good job coming back and being prepared. But from the standpoint of being in the pocket and facing the rush, certainly there was some trauma with him that maybe we all underestimated, and I think it took him longer to get over that than we all thought."

Roethlisberger played in every preseason game, but not much. He threw 22 passes, completed 15 for 111 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Yet, there were no obvious signs that the motorcycle accident affected his play.

"Because of the way we interacted with him in training camp, on the practice field, we had the tendency to think he was fine and ready to go," Whisenhunt said. "Early in the season, you could tell he wasn't as comfortable as he was in the past, and I am convinced that was the result of things that happened in the offseason."

That would include his Sept. 3 appendectormy.

"Yeah, I'm sure it did," Whisenhunt said. "Look at the history -- every time he was starting to recover from something, he had a setback, whether it was the appendectomy or the concussion. And it wasn't until it was the end of the year and he was healthy that he had a stretch of games that you started to see his play pick back up."

Whisenhunt acknowledged that, in hindsight, Charlie Batch should have started at quarterback at least the second game of the season and maybe others to give Roethlisberger more time to recover. But Whisenhunt also quickly noted that, given what the coaches knew in September, they made what they felt was the best decision at the time, and he was not critical of that.

Roethlisberger played poorly in his first three starts when he threw seven interceptions and no touchdown passes against Jacksonville, Cincinnati and San Diego and the reigning Super Bowl champs lost all three for a 1-3 start to an 8-8 season.

Whisenhunt, though, believes Roethlisberger will bounce back.

"I see him as one of the top quarterbacks in the league. He's an outstanding young player. I think as he gets more experience he'll see things better and have opportunities to make more plays in the pocket, but he'll still have the element of being able to move outside the pocket."

Roethlisberger has a new head coach in Mike Tomlin, a new coordinator in Bruce Arians and a new quarterbacks coach in Ken Anderson.

"Well, he's always been very resilient in anything," Whisenhunt said of the effect it might have on the quarterback. "I think he's a competitor first and foremost. When he gets on the field, he's going to compete, he's going to have success."