Posted on 01/19/2009 3:21:30 PM PST by malkee
PITTSBURGH - There always seems to be a “yeah, but” when discussing Ben Roethlisberger.
Yeah, he went 13-0 in his regular season starts as a 22-year-old rookie, but he was surrounded by great players. All he had to do was stay out of the way.
Yeah, he won a Super Bowl during his second year in the league, but he was horrific in that game (9 for 21 for 132 yards with a pick).
Yeah, he’s 51-20 as a regular-season starter and 7-2 in the postseason, but he doesn’t play pretty and disciplined. Half his big-play throws have a strong whiff of good fortune to them.
Know what? It’s time to take the “yeah, buts” out of the conversation and call it the way it is.
Thanks to the Steelers' 23-14 win over the Ravens in the AFC Championship, 26-year-old Ben Roethlisberger is headed to his second Super Bowl. He is one of the league's three best quarterbacks right now and the arc of his career is putting him on pace to be a legend.
Roethlisberger and that Steelers defense are the reasons Pittsburgh is headed to Tampa Bay to play the Arizona Cardinals. The numbers don’t testify, (16 for 33 for 255 yards and a touchdown), but people do.
“His record speaks for itself,” said Steelers tight end Heath Miller. “I don’t care how he gets the job done. I don’t care if he scrambles around and it’s not pretty. I just care that he wins.”
Said Ravens defensive lineman Trevor Pryce, “I have one piece of advice for the Arizona Cardinals. Don’t pass rush. Don’t let him play recess football because if you let him play recess football, he’s the best in the business
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcsports.msnbc.com ...
He’s good but he’s not in Brady or P. Manning’s realm.
He still has to play against the Cardinals ...
Well...he’s in the Superbowl and they’re not. And yes, I know Brady was injured.
Well...he’s in the Superbowl and they’re not. And yes, I know Brady was injured.
Well...he’s in the Superbowl and they’re not. And yes, I know Brady was injured.
Sorry for the multiple posting spree. What can I say, I’m enthusiastic!
Ben is a great QB, in the mode of Terry Bradshaw. But in the SB he will be going up against his former offensive coordinator who not only knows Ben’s tendencies but knows defensive coordinator Dick Lebeau’s tendencies as well. Believe me it would have been perceived as more pressure to play a team from the same state but if given truth serum the Steelers would have preferred that to a team whose head coach knows your team inside-out and feels aggreived that he was passed over when Cowher quit.
And if Brady wasn’t injured they would be representing the AFC again in the Superbowl. But injuries are part of the game, obviously. I would take Tom any day over Ben. Tom’s numbers are insane at this point in his career.
It’s going to be a great game ...
With that said, the Steelers should win the game because they have the better defense. Stress the word “should.” lol...Anything can happen, as the Pats found out last year.
You mean like Brett Farve? ;) Seriously, 'creating' & extending the play are important in the NFL.
For STEELER fans:
OPINION: CROSS COUNTRY JANUARY 17, 2009, 9:09 A.M. ET Sports Mania Is a Poor Substitute for Economic Success
There’s a reason so many Steeler fans have left Pittsburgh.
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By JERRY BOWYER
Pittsburgh
Tomorrow the Pittsburgh Steelers square off against the Baltimore Ravens, and the Philadelphia Eagles square off against the Arizona Cardinals. The winners will go head to head on Feb. 1 in Super Bowl XLIII.
If there ever was a time to crow about the wonders of rebuilding a city around a professional sports team, this would be it. Three of the four teams remaining in the play-offs hail from cities — Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh — that in recent years spent billions rebuilding their downtowns around pro sports facilities and other community “anchors.”
Except that there’s a problem. The teams might be competitive, but the cities definitely are not. All three continue to shrink in population, and have stagnant job markets and crumbling public schools.
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Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were prototypes of the economic development fad of the 1990s: government-financed “investments” in economic development. They all practiced what was called “tin cup urbanism” — the belief that the rest of society owed large taxpayer transfers to the urban cores from which most of us have fled. They all supped from the same cup: center city stadia, aquaria and subsidized retailia.
Philadelphia practiced “the core, the core, the core” as a development strategy while perfecting the art of the tin cup under the guidance of then Mayor (now Gov.) Ed Rendell in the late 1990s. The feeling in Philadelphia was that the city was being crushed by economic forces outside of its control, and that the country owes cities, owes them big, and should pay up.
We did pay up, although Philadelphia’s population declined 4.3% in the 1990s. And we will likely pay much more under Barack Obama’s “stimulus” plan to spend hundreds of billions on new infrastructure. But based on experience, we won’t see much renewal.
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor development was the leader. Huge sums of government money poured into a very small patch of territory. Especially notable was a pricey public aquarium. Development officials claimed that by reviving the urban “core,” economic health would return to the region. It didn’t. The dawning of the Age of Aquarium has yet to appear.
On my last trip to Baltimore, it didn’t take more than a three minute drive from the Inner Harbor before I could see burned-out neighborhoods. When I stopped for gas, I was aggressively panhandled by a man with a gold tooth in which a black ace was etched. Didn’t see that guy in the development prospectus.
Pittsburgh followed the pattern, explicitly basing its development model partly on Baltimore and partly on Cleveland (from which Baltimore’s football team had fled). The promises — of “Renaissance III,” “turning Pittsburgh back into a major league town again,” and “creating a world class city” — were grandiose. When city officials put the plan — to spend taxpayer money on rebuilding downtown and subsidizing a stadium — on the ballot, it got sacked. The referendum was rejected in all 11 counties in the metro area. It was a complete shut-out. Pittsburgh might be a drinking town with a football problem, as they say, but voters said no anyway on that one.
It didn’t matter. Despite the referendum results, the city built it all anyway with public money. Then Mayor Tom Murphy and other city officials, as well as state legislators, went ahead. By 2003, two years after the project’s completion, Pittsburgh faced bankruptcy.
A U.S. Census report just out shows that Pittsburgh’s population has just been surpassed by Toledo, Ohio. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 28, the Burg’s wunderkind without the wunder, responded this week to the news. He isn’t interested in repealing the special tax breaks for favored businesses the city uses to tamp down calls for pro-growth tax cuts, or in demanding more accountability from a school system that spends $18,000 per-child every year. And he isn’t talking about repealing a steep parking tax that socks commuters. He wants a recount from the Census Bureau.
But Pittsburgh has lost half of its population since the 1950s, the decade in which the city imposed its first individual income tax. That was the peak. Since then, each new tax designed to fund public works to “keep our young people here” spurs more and more people to call for a moving van.
In Today’s Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Bush EconomyMugging Bank of America
TODAY’S COLUMNISTS
Declarations: Suspend Your Disbelief
– Peggy NoonanPotomac Watch: Meet Obama’s Loyal Opposition
– Kimberley A. Strassel
COMMENTARY
The Weekend Interview: Jim Cooper
– Collin LevyEngaging North Korea Didn’t Work for Japan
– Melanie KirkpatrickLeave the New Deal in the History Books
– Mark LeveyLet’s Renew America Together
– Colin PowellMaybe America should take a look at Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before getting behind Mr. Obama’s plan to use public-works projects to lead us out of economic morass.
In some ways, the sports mania in these towns is a substitute for genuine economic achievement. Sure the middle class is disappearing. But, hey, how ‘bout them Steelers? Football triumphalism is a kind of civic cocaine, creating a sense of accomplishment where the reality is otherwise. (Maybe that’s what’s behind Western Europe’s soccer fanaticism.)
When the Steelers were in the Super Bowl in 2006 I was the host of a radio show in Pittsburgh. I argued that the franchise was an exercise in leadership excellence in a city whose politicians were anything but. Numerous callers hammered me. They said there are a lot of “Steelers” bars across the country, and that proved the city still had some national respect. Indeed, there are hundreds of watering holes dispersed across America loaded with fanatical devotes of the Pittsburgh Steelers. “Where are the Seahawks bars?” the callers asked.
In Seattle, of course. That city has gained population while Pittsburgh lost it. Steelers bars are the visible cultural artifact of a kind of economic diaspora. People in those bars are the refugees who looked at high taxes, union dominance and lousy schools and voted with their feet. They can still root for their favorite team — from Raleigh, North Carolina. You go South or West to get your bread. The circuses can be watched on cable.
Mr. Bowyer is the chairman of Bowyer Media, a Pennsylvania-based radio and television production company.
LOL! Little Ben is always in the top 5 for Int’s. Sacks and fumbles. Please..he is not even a backup on some teams. Ugh!
There are different types of elite QBs in the world. Manning puts up lots and lots of really sexy numbers, so long as you don’t pay attention to his post season record. Brady had a great post season record at the beginning of his career though it’s kind of faded lately. The comparison of Big Ben and Bradshaw is pretty apt, Bradshaw never really put up sexy numbers other than 4-0 in the big dance, he just made the passes he needed to to win the games that mattered most. Big Ben wins games, most of his wins need him to make 2 or 3 big plays, and as a Steeler QB sometimes those big plays aren’t passes, think of his tackle in Indy on the way to SB XL, or his run block against San Diego on the way to this one. The stat that really matters is the the W.
True. They'll be watching the SuperBowl in street clothes somewhere, and Big Ben won't.
Another Super Bowl Championship will come, and some more of them will jump on the bandwagon.
And the rest will ignore reality and keep kissing McNabb’s butt like he's everything Rush said he isn't.
It's a great time to be a Steelers fan, here in Eagles territory. Such whining and griping. I love it!
Yeah, Tom will be sitting home with Giselle and his three Superbowl rings. Tough life for Tom.
Thankfully, else he'd be sitting at home watching on TV.
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