In Defense of Big Ben

Three damn yards. With no time on the clock yesterday, Ben Roethlisberger completed a hail Mary pass to Nate Washington that ended up three yards short of the endzone. Final score: Raiders 20, Steelers 13. Now, a team with pre-season Super Bowl aspirations just lost to a team whom many experts thought might go winless. Yet in a lot of ways, those three yards have exemplified the season for the now 2-5 and last place Pittsburgh Steelers.

I'm not savy enough to pin-point specifically what's ailing the team. If I did, I could probably charge the Steelers Duce Staley's salary for the information. Hell, they could pay me that amount to take some crappy Polaroid pictures of the team, and I'd be doing more for them than Duce. Anyway, I do want to speak on Ben Roethlisberger. Yesterday was, especially considering the opponent, Ben's worst performance as a Steeler. Unfortunately, most of his other games that would compete for that title have come this season. Still, I have a big problem with the national media saying that Bill Cowher should be starting Charlie Batch. Last night at halftime on NBC, Sterling Sharp implied that going with Batch was an absolute must. Amazingly, Peter King, probably the most prominent football writer in America seconded Sharp's opinion in his Monday Morning Quarterback column this morning.

I think Sterling Sharp's an idiot and King has slurped one too many of those fucking venti hazelnut lattes. First of all, as close as the Steelers are to being 5-2 as opposed to 2-5, they have virtually no chance to make the playoffs. Charlie Batch is a fine back-up, maybe even among the best in the league, but the Steelers long-term future hinges in the continued development of Ben Roethlisberger. I would much rather the Steelers lose one or two more games this season and get Ben back on track, than pad the win total with Batch behind center and have an uncertain QB situation heading into 2007.

Also, there's no guarantee that Charlie Batch will be THAT much better than Roethlisberger. Granted, I imagine Batch wins the game yesterday, but the national media is touting Chaz based on a very small sample size. In essentially six quarters of play, Batch has completed 24-of-39 passes for 5 TDs and 0 INTs. Impressive numbers to say the least. However, those stats have come against a 1-6 Miami Dolphins team, and an Atlanta Falcons defense that was so under-manned up front, it was routinely putting eight or nine guys in the box. In two quarters of that same game, Roethlisberger riddled the Atlanta secondary to the tune of 16-of-22 for 238 yards and 3 TDs, in what easily would have been a career day were it not for Chauncey Davis's helmet. In both of his appearances this season, opposing team's found out less than a week before the game that Batch would be getting the nod. As Tommy Maddox can attest, that doesn't necessarily guarantee success. Yet one would naturally assume that Batch's numbers might regress after teams game-plan specifically for him.

In his short career, the biggest concern I have with Big Ben is his alarming tendency to get hurt. However, that does give a nice amount of data to analyze how he plays when coming off of an injury. In two and a half seasons, Roethlisberger has been hurt approximately six times, missing six games in the process. The injury count factors in the two times (broken thumb, concussion) he did not miss a start, and counts the off-season motorcycle accident/appendectomy as one incident. Anyway, in here are the stat lines in Roethlisberger's first game after getting hurt

January 15, 2005: Steelers 20, Jets 17: 17-of-30, 180 yards, 1 TD 2 INT
October 27, 2005: Steelers 27, Bengals 13: 9-of-14, 93 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT
November 28, 2005: Colts 26, Steelers 7: 17-of-33, 133 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT
December 4, 2005: Bengals 38, Steelers 31: 29-of-41, 386 yards, 3 TD, 3 INT
September 18, 2006: Jaguars 9, Steelers 0: 17-of-31, 141 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT
October 29, 2006: Raiders 20, Steelers 13: 25-of-37, 301 yards, 1 TD, 4 INT

The Steelers have gone 2-4 in these games, while Roethlisberger has thrown 9 TDs against 14 INTs, while averaging 205 yards on 19-of-31 passing. Throw out these games, and, including the playoffs, Roethlisberger has a 26-6 record and an impressive TD (41) to INT (25) ratio. Fudge this data a little more to take into account the first three games following the accident/appendectomy combo (by far his worst injury), and the numbers swell to 26-4 with 41 TDs and just 20 INTs. In other words, Ben tends to suck when coming off of an injury, which is a shame because he tends to get hurt a lot. That said, the frequency of his injuries may also skew the data a little bit. Undoubtedly, some of these bad performances had as much to do with facing a good defense as they did with rustiness or soreness.

(This is really the subject for another post, but...The same people calling for Batch are also the same people who call Roethlisberger nothing more than a good game manager who are the same people who go down on Bill Cowher for his record when leading at halftime. The biggest critique of Ben as game manager not game-breaker are his poor stats when he attempting over 25 passes. Although this is really a subject for another post, in many of his 28 wins as a starter, Roethlisberger has put up an electric first-half, giving the Steelers a sizable lead. Under Cowher's philosophy, he becomes little more than an assembly-line worker for the next 30 minutes, handing off the ball on every offensive play. While boring, this brand of football probably has something to do with the fact that Cowher has lost exactly two games during his career when leading at any time by more than ten points. Conservative? Probably. Effective? Absolutely. Evidence that Roethlisberger is a game manager, not a superstar? Absolutely not.)

The essence of all of this is that Roethlisberger has to be the starting QB when the Steelers take the field against the Broncos this Sunday. Even if he matches his performance against the Raiders, he needs to be the starter the week after as well. Although, and I'm not really sure why I think this, I suppose there is a chance he might get hurt.