Steelers shouldn’t play head games with Roethlisberger

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, November 03, 2006  |  Comments( 10 )

Pittsburgh Steelers
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Here are two words for Bill Cowher to consider: Steve Young. And then, two more: Troy Aikman.

Despite all the computers and video tape and the other bloodless, technological aspects of pro football these days, major decisions still often turn on the macho factor.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said he felt fine to play against the Oakland Raiders last Sunday. Steelers head coach Cowher believed him. Some doctors signed off on it.

And after he had thrown four interceptions in a 20-13 loss to the Raiders, Roethlisberger insisted that a concussion he had suffered the previous Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons had nothing to do with his errors in judgment.

Maybe not. Indeed, Big Ben did complete 25 of 37 passes for 301 yards. But studies of football players who have suffered concussions have shown that some effects of such an injury -- impaired reasoning skills, a slowed-down ability to make decisions, can last for some time.

Anyone who watched the Atlanta game remembers the silence that fell over the Georgia Dome crowd with Roethlisberger sprawled absolutely motionless on the turf. The play that laid him out was something out of a quarterback's darkest nightmare -- with Atlanta DE Patrick Kerney and LB Michael Boley on his back and riding him down, Roethlisberger bent over just enough to absorb a helmet-to-helmet hit from DE Chauncey Davis. It looked more like a mugging than a tackle.

Yet Davis was never penalized by the NFL, and Big Ben got up and walked -- well, staggered -- off the field. A few days later, he said he was ready to play again.

But was he?

You won't find the name of Martha Fleishman listed among those credited with sacks this season, but the 62-year-old Pittsburgh native also dealt Roethlisberger a concussion when her Chrysler (only slightly larger than Chauncey Davis) collided with his motorcycle last summer. And according to a study by the University of North Carolina Medical Center several years ago, concussions can have a cumulative effect.

"After three," researcher Kevin Guskiewicz concluded, "it might be time to consider tennis or golf."

That's what finally ended the career of Hall of Fame quarterbacks Young and Aikman.

More than a few sportswriters who covered the Oakland game noted that Roethlisberger seemed to anticipate contact before it happened, ducking under in advance.

Does this mean he's lost his nerve? Hardly. If that were the case, it would have been very easy for Roethlisberger to have told his coaches that he didn't feel comfortable playing last Sunday.

When you think about it, however, a football quarterback routinely performs an action that flies in the face of all his bodily instincts. He stands in the pocket and prepares to throw the football even when he knows that a defensive player is flying toward him unblocked. His body is screaming: "Look out! Get down!" but he chooses to ignore those signals and complete the pass.

Maybe it's gotten to the point with Roethlisberger that no matter what he'd like to have happen, the human urge for self-preservation has become so strong that it's overriding his football instincts.

There is no real difference between being knocked unconscious by a helmet, a city street or a gloved fist. Yet when boxers are KO'd, it is often several months before they are allowed to fight again.

Now, Bill Cowher said he's planning on starting Roethlisberger again on Sunday. After all, the defending world champions are in desperate straits -- and while backup Charlie Batch isn't bad, he's no Big Ben.

"Confidence is a fragile thing," Cowher said, referring to his team.

That could also apply to quarterbacks.

Original Pittsburgh Steelers commentary, courtesy of RealFootball365.com
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