“That is why we put the work in. That’s where it all comes from. We make an adjustment last minute, no one blinks, no one flinches. They run the proper play and we get into field goal range.” — Ben

Gil Brandt @Gil_Brandt
Roethlisberger improved his record against Browns to 18-1 (.947), best mark of any QB vs. 1 team since 1970 merger.

From Mary Kay Cabot,Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“Ben Roethlisberger owns the Cleveland Browns”

After all these years, Ben Roethlisberger is still making the Browns pay for passing on him in the draft in 2004. He can improve to 18-1 over the Browns with a victory and 10-0 against them at home. He’s also looking to go to 8-1 in home openers — and is still seemingly indestructible.

“When you’ve got a quarterback that’s damn near impossible to bring down, it opens up a lot of room for success,” said Browns defensive end Billy Winn. “One guy will miss a tackle, two guys will miss a tackle and basically all of his receivers are just out there playing backyard football, getting open and creating opportunities. You have to have multiple guys getting to the quarterback. It’s not good enough having one guy back there. You have to have constant pressure.”

Roethlisberger shows no signs of slowing down at 32. Last season, he finished No. 3 in the NFL with a 92.0 passer rating, No. 7 with 28 touchdowns and No. 9 with 4,261 yards.


You can read more here.



From Pat McManamon, ESPN – AFC North blog:

“Roethlisberger reads and the Browns fail”

Sunday’s 30-27 Steelers win in Heinz Field was greatly influenced by two plays, one the Steelers made, the other the Cleveland Browns didn’t. Taken on their own, they were two plays in a game that had 131. Taken in the context and situation of the game, the two plays had large significance.

Both came on the last possession for each team with the score tied at 27.

Pittsburgh’s was successful, and led to the game-winning field goal.

Cleveland’s was not, and contributed to a punt that gave the Steelers the ball for their game-winning drive.

For the Steelers, Roethlisberger’s savvy and poise were on display with 20 seconds left. As he walked to […]

“Nobody is going to put more pressure on me than me. For me, it is always pressure to win. I always put that pressure on me to be the best I can be and win football games.” — Ben

From Mark Kaboly, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Ben Roethlisberger is a winner.

Actually, Ben Roethlisberger needs to win … at everything he does.

You name it — shuffleboard, golf, throwing a football into a garbage can, naming songs from the 1980s — and he will try his hardest to come out on top, and he usually does.

“You ask Ben to play basketball, he is going to kill you,” Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor said. “You ask him to play pool, he is going to kill you. If you ask him to play pingpong, he’s going to kill you.”

Maybe that’s the reason Roethlisberger has won at every level of football?

“He’s as competitive as they come,” Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley said. “That’s a trait that you love to see guys have. He is going to give it everything he has every time he takes the field.”

In high school, he led Findlay to a 10-2 record and the school’s first playoff win in his only year as a starter.

In college, he led Miami (Ohio) to a 27-11 record, including a MAC title his final year.

In the pros, he has won 105 career games in 10 seasons and two Super Bowl rings.

“I don’t like to lose at anything,” Roethlisberger said. “I don’t care what it is for. It is hard for me to lose at all. I have always been like that. Maybe I got it from my dad or my grandma, I don’t know. It is something that has always been in me.”

Ten quarterbacks have won a Super Bowl after age 32, but the majority of those came decades ago. Only one quarterback older than 32 (Brad Johnson in 2002) since the turn of the century has won a Super Bowl. Roethlisberger turned 32 in March.

“That doesn’t concern me, no, because I don’t feel like I am old,” Roethlisberger said. “I feel like I am entering my prime, and I feel like we have a good team that can do some good things. Nobody is going to put more pressure on me than me. For me, it is […]

“I think it’s been a pretty solid 10 years. I mean, three Super Bowl appearances, two wins…I think most quarterbacks coming into the league would take that if you said that’s going to be part of your first 10 years. “Ben started and developed really quickly compared to what the old school used to be that it took a few years. Ben wound up starting his rookie year and really was pretty quick to being an effective quarterback.” — Steelers president Art Rooney II.

From Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Brett Keisel has followed Ben Roethlisberger’s career as closely as anyone. The defensive end already had two years on the roster when the Steelers drafted their quarterback in 2004.

Keisel, who would become friends with Roethlisberger, recalled two first “wow” moments for him that opened his eyes to just what the Steelers had in their young quarterback.

The first came during a practice.

“I was just a couple years older than him, and I made a nice rush, and he just took off away from me,” Keisel said. “I said, ‘This big boy can run.’ ”

The other came in the fifth game of his rookie season — his third start — against Cleveland at home. The score was tied, 7-7, in the first quarter. The Steelers had second down on the Browns 6.

“The pocket got smashed,” Keisel said, giving the play-by-play 10 years later. “And he did a couple whoop-de-doos and spins and tiptoes and then just gave everything he had to get into the end zone, and then he had to dive between two guys coming to smash him.

“When that happened, all of us were like, ‘Wow!’ ”

There would be many more such moments over the next decade, and they hope more to come.

Said Keisel: “Running with this thing the way he did as a rookie and going 15-1, and the next year we go win the Super Bowl and then we go back and then we go back. I mean, it’s all because we have that franchise quarterback.”

You can read more here.

“Getting back to (and winning) the Super Bowl is everything – that’s the goal that would mean so much to me, this team, the fans and the Rooneys. It’s where we want to be.” — Ben

From Jim Corbett, USA Today Sports:

Ben Roethlisberger is arguably the AFC North’s best playmaker.

Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor calls the two-time Super Bowl winner, “The league’s most underrated quarterback.”

The same goes for Roethlisberger’s leadership. Teammates countered former Steelers receiver Emmanuel Sanders’ shot earlier this summer his new field general, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, is the better leader by voting Roethlisberger offensive captain for a sixth time.

Roethlisberger shrugged off Sanders’ swipe.

“It’s a little disappointing,” Roethlisberger told USA TODAY Sports. “But you move on. I can’t worry about those things other people are saying. Being voted captain, I think speaks volumes about my leadership.”

What Roethlisberger didn’t say was how he paid for his receivers to spend an April week working with him in Southern California along with top draft prospect and now Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Blake Bortles. He shares the same agents, Bruce and Ryan Tollner, as Roethlisberger.

“It was big for those young guys, a smart move by Ben,” offensive coordinator Todd Haley told USA TODAY Sports. “He wants to be great and wants us to be great. He’s always had the capability to be that guy.”

What really matters now is what happens come Sunday’s season opener against the visiting Cleveland Browns.

It helps that Roethlisberger has never lost to the Browns at home during his 10-season career.

The Ohio native doesn’t plan on things changing Sunday when the Steelers start their 2014 revenge tour — bent on a bounce-back campaign after two years failing to reach the postseason.

Roethlisberger, 32, is getting the ball out quicker and embraces the no-huddle scheme that enabled the Steelers to go 6-2 down the stretch of last year’s 8-8 disappointment, Pittsburgh’s second consecutive playoff-less finish.

A quarterback who has been sacked 386 times is more confident knowing he might have his best group of protectors yet following the offseason hiring of 33-year NFL coach Mike Munchak.

“They’re a good young group and a lot of it has to do with their Hall of Fame coach and they’re absorbing everything he says,”Roethlisberger said. “They’re may be one of the closest […]

Brett Keisel was a call-in guest today on the DVE Morning Show and among the topics he discussed was #7 wearing the #99 in training camp:

On what it meant to him seeing Big Ben wearing his jersey to training camp –

That was awesome of him.

Ben and I are great friends and we have grown up a lot together, and you know, for him to do that for me…it meant a lot to me.

It was tough not knowing what was gonna happen, and to see him non verbally make a statement for me, meant a lot to me.

I really appreciate him doing that. I love that guy.


You can read more at Brett’s website here, and listen to his interview here.



Looking ahead to Sunday –

“No quarterback ever beat the Browns as much as Terry Bradshaw. That is, until Ben Roethlisberger came along.” — Steve Doerschuk, Canton Repository.

More from Mr. Doerschuk’s column:

The pretend games are over. It’s time for the Browns to think about the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The contemplation begins with Ben Roethlisberger.

Big Ben casts a shadow over Cleveland’s hopes to end an 0-10 slump in season openers. The Findlay, Ohio, native’s record against the Ohio rival is 17-1, including 9-0 in Pennsylvania.

The Browns haven’t faced a quarterback with such frequency long before the move to Baltimore, when Terry Bradshaw was the Pittsburgh slinger.

On his way to Canton, Bradshaw gave the Steelers a regular-season record of 107-51. If Roethlisberger posts a 12-4 record in 2014 — Pittsburgh has finished 12-4 three times in the last six years — his career record will be … 107-51.

Big Ben has been a bad experience for the Browns.

Three years before the ‘04 draft took Roethlisberger to Pennsylvania, Mike Pettine was a high school football coach in the state. As he prepared to face Pittsburgh as the new head coach of the Browns, Pettine said that “about 30 teams” do not have quarterbacks who can elevate the rest of the team when the supporting cast is full of holes.

Asked where Roethlisberger fits into such a discussion, Pettine said:

“Everybody would basically say that it’s Brady and Peyton Manning … guys that have had different supporting casts through the […]

No problem!

We’ll give you the “don’t miss” tweets right here throughout the season!


Burt Lauten @SteelersPRBurt
Be sure to watch the @NFLonCBS pre-game show this Sunday as @CowherCBS sits down with @steelers QB @_BigBen7


(that’s tweet speak for catch Ben’s interview with Coach Cowher during the NFL on CBS pre-game broadcast on Sunday starting at 12 noon)



And:

If you missed Ben’s interview yesterday with the media, you can watch it here.


*Thank you to Mr. Lauten for the photo!