Ben Roethlisberger became the only player in NFL history to throw for 12 touchdowns over a 2 game span. Last week he was within striking distance of the single game passing record.
It’s sort of sad that Ben’s really just now getting some of the recognition he deserves, but to the casual fan (and unfortunately much of the media) stats are king.
I argued with plenty of people that Ben was already a Hall of Famer for starting 3 Superbowls. Only 12 Quarterbacks have started in 3 or more; 8 of them are in the hall of fame. The other 4 are Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner, and Ben. All 4 of those guys will be in Canton.
In my opinion though, the only argument you could make against Ben is that he never lit up the scoreboard in his career, and was constantly out-shined by guys like Manning and Brady.
Well guess what? Big Ben has out-played both of those guys the past 2 weeks, and that’s even with Tom Brady playing on fire right now.
Peter King of Sports Illustrated wrote an article last week basically saying, “this Ben guys is pretty good.”
I think that many Steelers fans aren’t surprised by the sudden break out performance of Ben. If you’re like me you’ve thought throughout his career if he could get some protection he could pick apart a defense as well as any passer in the league. He’s finally got that, and a plethora of weapons to throw to.
Despite being incredible talents, I do think that you’ll start to see Manning and Brady drop off in the next couple of seasons, which leaves a great opportunity for Ben to step up and fill the window for a couple years as one of the best in the league.
Obviously there’s plenty of competition by younger guys like Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck.
With the talent on this offense though, I don’t see any reason why they should slow down. The nucleus of Ben’s supporting cast are hitting their prime, and locked up for a while. They’ll need a replacement for Heath, but besides him it’s a very young and talented offense.
I think that Ben Roethlisberger has been one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the league throughout his entire career. I really hope that about 10 years from now people look back and really recognize him as one of the all time greats that he is.
