and Max, and Mike, and Maurkice, and Heath, and Brett, and James, and LaMarr, and Troy…to play in the 2012 NFL Pro Bowl!!

Being selected as a starter in the Pro Bowl is a huge honor for players! Let’s show our team how much we support their selection – vote early, vote often! Make Hawaii Black & Gold!

The annual contest of the AFC and NFC’s best will take place Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012 at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii.

Steelers on the ballot from the offense include Ben, Rashard Mendenhall, Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, Hines Ward, David Johnson, Heath Miller, Marcus Gilbert, Max Starks, Ramon Foster, Chris Kemoeatu, and Maurkice Pouncey.

Defensive players include Brett Keisel, Ziggy Hood, Casey Hampton, James Harrison, LaMarr Woodley, James Farrior, Lawrence Timmons, William Gay, Ike Taylor, Troy Polamalu, and Ryan Clark.

Ben now ranks third in the NFL in passing yards behind Drew Brees and Tom Brady! He is 224 of 354 (63.3%) for 2,877 yards, 16 touchdowns and a quarterback rating of 93.2 rating so far this season!

Balloting is open until Monday, Dec. 19 at the conclusion of Monday Night Football (Pittsburgh Steelers at San Francisco 49ers, 8:30 p.m.).

The Pro Bowl teams will be announced at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27 on a special NFL Total Access 2012 Pro Bowl Selection Show on NFL Network.


You can vote for the Black & Gold as many times as you like, just click here!

You can read more on the 2012 Pro Bowl here.

“People make a big deal after Week 1. You lose a game and everyone wants to jump on the hater bandwagon of the Steelers even more than they already are. We just kind of laughed it off and said, ‘You know what, we’ll just do what we do’ and I think we’ve done that.” — Ben on the early-season criticism of the team.

Ben taped an interview earlier in the week that was shown this evening during NFL Network’s Total Access.

During the two-minute interview Ben responded to questions concerning his thumb injury, the Bye Week, his young wide receivers, Cincinnati’s rookie quarterback Andy Dalton, even his excitement over Jerricho Cotchery’s touchdown in last Sunday’s game against the Bengals.

The interview wraps up with a question about the state of the Steelers, and his thoughts on the possibility of playing the Ravens in the playoffs.

If you missed it…


You can watch the video here.

…to enter the “Show off your Steelers Fan Cave” contest!


If you have a Steelers-decorated game room, rec room, bedroom or any room in your house – you can enter! Just send us a photo of it!

We will post all the photos in the Contest Album in the gallery throughout the week and we will select a winner next Tuesday, November 22nd!

The winner will receive an autographed 8×10 photograph of Ben hoisting the Lombardi Trophy after the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII (see Fan Cave contest post from Nov. 15th below to see photo).

You have until Monday evening at 7:00 pm to photograph that favorite room and send it in! Please include your name, where you are from and anything you’d like us to know about your Fan Cave.

The winner will be notified on Tuesday afternoon and the website will be updated with the winner’s name. Good Luck!

Send emails to: bigben7website@gmail.com

A story about Ben will appear in the November 28th issue of ESPN The Magazine (James Harrison is on the cover).

Writers Sarah Turcotte and Lindsay Berra take you through the Week 4 match-up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Texans as they follow Ben from start to finish of the game.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

As fired-up Steelers bound out of the locker room in the bowels of Reliant Stadium, they’re careful not to disturb their QB. Ben Roethlisberger leans against a wall with his eyes closed, taking a final minute to mentally prepare.

The eight-year vet has won two Super Bowls and 32 road games, more than Aaron Rodgers has played. He thinks about how the crowd in the closed stadium will be loud. About his injured offensive line. And about how Texans OLB Mario Williams sacked him twice the last time they played each other. As the last Steeler passes, Roethlisberger breaks his trance and jogs out of the tunnel.

Then, just before kicking into a full sprint, No. 7 yells: “We rollin’, we rollin’.”


More from the story appears here.



Pro Bowl Voting Update:

Tom Brady leads the AFC in Pro Bowl votes so far with 537,780!

From the Steelers, only Troy Polamalu (92,630 votes), Maurkice Pouncey (142,930 votes) and LaMarr Woodley (203,794 votes) lead at their respective positions.

Ravens players Ray Lewis (ILB), Haloti Ngata (DT), Ed Reed (FS) and Brendon Ayanbadejo (ST) lead at theirs.

There are five weeks left to vote!! Let’s get to votin’ for Big Ben.

Cast your votes here.

From Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today:

The news out of Pittsburgh is not good. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has a broken right thumb and is expected to miss …

Not one game.

Not one play.

Amazing.

Even Roethlisberger’s harshest critics have to admit he is as tough as any NFL player. If you want to call him the toughest, you’ll get no argument here. It’s hard to say with any certainty that he would keep playing with Schaub’s injury or Cassel’s. But would you bet against him?

“You know me, if I can be out there, I’ll be out there,” Roethlisberger often has said. “I’m always going to fight for my guys right up to the time they carry me off on a stretcher.”

That happened once. It’s surprising it hasn’t happened a bunch of times, considering Roethlisberger has been sacked 336 times — including postseason games — and hit countless other times in his 7 1/2-year career. In the final regular-season game in ’08 against Cleveland, he was carted off with a concussion.

Roethlisberger has missed just six of 134 games because of injury or illness. There have been many times when we’ve wondered how he picked himself up off the ground — or a hospital bed — to play…


You can read the rest of Mr. Cook’s column here.

The contest for November starts today….


If you have a Steelers-decorated game room, rec room, bedroom or any room in your house then you can enter! Just send us a photo of it!

We will post all the photos in the Contest Album in the gallery throughout the week and we will select a winner next Tuesday, November 22nd!

The winner will receive an autographed 8×10 photograph to add to their Fan Cave of Ben hoisting the Lombardi Trophy after the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII (photo at left).

You have one week to photograph that favorite room and send it in! Please include your name, where you are from and anything you’d like us to know about your Fan Cave.

The winner will be notified on Tuesday and the website will be updated with the winner’s name. Good Luck!

Send emails to: bigben7website@gmail.com