Big Ben in the Hall?

First off, I just want to say how awful it has been to spend the last 4 years living in Pittsburgh as a Pats fan. In 2005, all the Pats would have had to do was beat a slightly above average Denver team and they would have hosted the Steelers in the AFC title game. I don’t think I need to explain how terrified Steelers fans would have been to face the Pats in another title game. Instead, the Steelers went onto a Super Bowl title while only getting only one quarter of Carson Palmer (knee cheap shot), beating only one legit team (Indy), facing Jake Plummer, and then having the refs hand them the Lombardi against a Seahawks team that outplayed them. In 2006, my Pats laid the big fat egg in the AFC title game, even though we win in a blowout if the refs don’t call that ridiculous offensive PI on Troy Brown (with Bill Polian pulling the strings). Side note: I had a party at my apartment for that game and didn’t allow a friend of a friend to enter my apartment because he was wearing a Manning jersey. In 2007…I can’t even talk about it. And now this year, the Steelers get lucky again and play the easiest playoff schedule in NFL history to win a Super Bowl.

The NFL was just terrible this year. There were at least 6 teams last year that would have walked away with a title in 2008, but there was a major dip in the great teams and a regression to mega- parity. The Colts, Pats, Chargers, Jags, Cowboys, Packers and Giants of 2007 were so much more dangerous than any team this year. I even think last year’s Steelers team was better because they could run the ball and Big Ben had a strong season. Their defense had better numbers this year, but how many great offenses did they play? Think about it: the Steelers beat an 8-8 Chargers team that didn’t deserve a playoff ticket; then they beat a Ravens team with a rookie QB and their practice squad cornerbacks; they top it off by beating arguably the worst qualifier in Super Bowl history. After all of the taunting I have received for the Pats lack of success since moving here, I was just hoping for one crushing Super Bowl defeat so I could have my day. I almost got my wish, but the luckiest team in the history of sports did it again.


Off the top of my head, here’s my unofficial list of the Steelers lucky outcomes in big games:

-The Jackie Smith drop
-The immaculate “reception”
-The Mike Renfro catch: http://www.star-telegram.com/738/story/417268.html
-Carson Palmer’s cheap shot knee injury (Carson owned the Steelers that year)
-Nick Harper cutting back to get tackled by Big Ben
-The Pats losing to Denver in 2005
-The Refs wearing Black and Yellow in the Seahawks Super Bowl
-The entire 2008 season


The point of this post, however is to make my argument for Ben Roethlisberger as anything but a Hall of Fame QB. Let me start by acknowledging that it is still early in his career, so I am simply pointing out how ridiculous it is to start talking about the Hall with what he has accomplished to date. I definitely get a biased view of this argument living in Pittsburgh. People say that some sports towns have a “college feel.” Pittsburgh is more like a high school program when it comes to how the fans treat the Steelers. The people here really think that the Steelers are part of the community and they think that they know the players (or the players care about them…). For this reason, you cannot argue with a Steelers fan. Big Ben is a Hall of Fame player. Period. Ike Taylor is the best cover corner in the NFL. Period. James Harrison didn’t have to take steroids to go from practice squad to defensive POY. Period. These are the only fans that I have ever seen where rational, unbiased thought never enters a conversation. They know the Steelers and nothing else (well maybe NASCAR and proper mullet grooming). The topic of Roethlisberger in the hall is a huge point of contention on my part, mostly because Steelers fans were saying it BEFORE this season started. That would have been like making a case for Trent Dilfer. My argument against Roethlisberger is twofold and very simple:

(1) The Steelers would have won both Super Bowls with an average QB. He might get the credit as the winning QB, and I understand the fact that QB’s get too much credit for winning and too much blame for losing, but he is simply a glorified game manager. I simply don’t think that winning super bowls should count toward a QB’s HOF resume unless he was one of the best players on his own team. Roethlisberger simply was not.

In 2005, there is really no doubting this point. He had a rating of 22.6 in the Super Bowl and the Steelers won despite Roethlisberger. His best play of that entire playoff run was the tackle of Nick Harper. This year he has been getting his due and certainly had a much better playoff run. But at the end of the day, he failed to put his team in the endzone in that Super Bowl and the Steelers had to get lucky to win the game. I will give him credit for driving for the game winner when it mattered, but you can’t overlook all of the opportunities that he had to put the Cards away. That game should have been over, but he takes a 16-yard sack en route to punting the Cards back into the game. Roethlisberger had a decent game, but most of the work was done by his receivers stepping up and making plays. It is pretty easy to win the Super Bowl MVP if you are the QB of the winning team but he did not. He made simple throws that any QB could make. But the bigger issue is that the Steelers realized that they have to keep the game plans simple so he doesn’t make one of his classic mistakes. This is a guy who was criticized during the regular season by his head coach for not preparing hard enough before games. They significantly dumbed-down their passing attack in the playoffs and were lucky enough for their playmakers to make big plays against pretty weak secondaries. Bottom line: in two Super Bowls, he has 1 TD and 3 INT. Anwtaan Randle-El has as many Super Bowl TD passes for the Black and Yellow.

(2) Teams also play 16 regular season games every year. And in them, Roethlisberger is a very good football player, but not a great QB. Here is the biggest problem with calling him a HOF QB. He rarely takes over games with his arm and you must do so to be a Hall of Famer at this position. His biggest strength is keeping plays alive but it also leads to stupid sacks and awful turnovers. Great QB’s just don’t get sacked much because they are smart enough to avoid the pressure. He is the most sacked QB in the NFL over the last few years. Let’s take the two best in the game for example: Manning and Brady. Opposing defenses often use their nickel and dime packages (regardless of offensive personnel) on first and second down against these guys because the passing attack is the biggest threat. The Steelers are a running team. Opposing defenses do not fear Roethlisberger and certainly do not adjust their game plan for the Steelers passing attack. Anecdotally, Rodney Harrison mentioned on the Super Bowl pregame that Roethlisberger is not a great QB, but a great football player. Hearing this from an opposing safety shows what they see on film: an average QB. The stats reflect this as well.

His only big passing season was 2007. Other than that, he has never topped 20 TD’s and has a below average career TD to INT ratio (101 to 69). The stats highlight a very important point when you talk about the Hall of Fame. How can a guy who has had only one pro bowl caliber season be considered a potential Hall of Famer? He has never been considered the best at his position, never received a MVP vote and there are at least 6 or 7 QB’s that the average fan/GM would have taken over him before this Super Bowl hype. I recognize that the Hall of Fame is not as exclusive as it should be, but for a QB to make the HOF in this pass-heavy era, he needs the stats to back it up. Just because a QB had the good fortune of playing on a couple of very good teams doesn’t mean we can ignore what he does in the regular season. Roethlisberger is the ultimate game manager, but not a Hall of Fame quarterback.