Short of employing the Secret Service, Mike Tomlin made it a priority to protect the franchise that is Ben Roethlisberger.

The coach read through a list of needs at his news conference yesterday that sounded as if he were shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. His top priority is to make sure Roethlisberger does not continue to become turkey for the guests.

"We have to do a better job of protecting the quarterback," Tomlin said, "and the thing that we all have to understand as a football team is that it's not a five-man job in terms of protecting our quarterback, it is a unit job."

Tomlin took aim not just at the offensive line, the popular target this week after the Jets sacked Roethlisberger seven times Sunday. He counted everyone, including the quarterback because at times he's not getting rid of the ball quickly enough.

"Our failures in that area on Sunday were shared by all," Tomlin said. "We have to do a better job of getting open at the wide receiver position, we have to do a better job of protecting up front, we have to do a better job of protecting at the running back position, we have to do a better job of deciphering what we're looking at and getting the ball out of our hands at the quarterback position.

"That is a collective body of work and we fell short on Sunday."

The Jets put an exclamation point on what has been a troubling trend. Their seven sacks were shocking because they had only nine

before they played the Steelers, the fewest in the league.

But others also feasted on Roethlisberger. He has been sacked 30 times, an average of three per game that, if it continues, would add up to 48 by the end of the season, if he lasts that long. He was sacked 46 times last season, which were the most a Steelers quarterback has been sacked since Cliff Stoudt hit the dirt 51 times in 1983.

No Steelers quarterback was sacked more often than Stoudt and Roethlisberger in those two seasons, and now Roethlisberger is threatening to have two of the top three seasons for dubious quarterback marks in club history.

Defenses developed a different way to rush Roethlisberger. Former coach Bill Parcells said on ESPN Monday that the Jets used a "spy" to make sure that Roethlisberger scrambled to his left and not his right. They also wanted to rush him from the side and not up the middle.

Parcells attended the game against the Jets Sunday to help honor one of his former players, Curtis Martin. He said Jets coaches told him that Roethlisberger is most effective when he scrambles to his right, so they wanted to make sure that if he broke out of the pocket, it was to his left.

They assigned one defender to always rush from the left side of the defense. Tomlin acknowledged as much and said it was nothing new.

"Cleveland used Willie McGinest in a similar way and Ben was able to escape him," Tomlin said. "What the Jets did in that area, in terms of having someone along the line of scrimmage shadow him is nothing new. People know what he is capable of and we have seen that week in and week out."

They likely will do more of it after the Jets' success. After turnovers, a sack is the most disruptive thing that can happen to an offense. It might not have been Leon Washington who won the game for the Jets in overtime with his 33-yard punt return to the Steelers' 26 but Dewayne Robertson. He sacked Roethlisberger for a 7-yard loss to the 14 on second-and-7 to set up the punt.

"More than anything, a lot of our pressures have been happening on second down," Tomlin said. "It puts you behind the chains. It puts you in third-down situations that are less than ideal, to say the least.

"We have been good offensively and I think the No. 1 third-down offense in the league, up over 50 percent converting them, because we've been in manageable third downs. That was not the case on Sunday and a lot of it had to do with getting sacked on second down. When you get in third-and-14, third-and-11 or third-and-17 and so forth, there is a chance for negative things to happen. That was the case on Sunday."