Roethlisberger looking for chance at redemption
February 1
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"It's not that Ben Roethlisberger didn't mean it. Or that he was going to renege on what he told Jerome Bettis -- heck, promised him -- a year earlier.
Come back for one more season, the quarterback told his lumbering running back after the 2004 season, and he will deliver Bettis and the rest of his teammates to the Super Bowl.
And when Bettis did return, well ... uh ... there was no turning back.
When Roethlisberger was running through the tunnel at Ford Field in Detroit, getting ready to face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL, the enormity of where he was, of what he might be able to accomplish, of what he had promised to Bettis for his farewell tour, began bubbling inside Roethlisberger.
Nerves that were present and eventually went away in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Denver checked in for a 24-hour stay in Roethlisberger's system and never left.
"I wasn't nervous going into any of those other games," Roethlisberger said. "I was expecting another big game."
It didn't materialize.
The quarterback who was given the keys to the Steelers' offense and drove them Maserati-style through the AFC playoffs never could get out of second gear against the Seahawks. Sure, he threw a big 37-yard pass to Hines Ward to set up his 3-yard touchdown scramble. Yes, he executed a huge block on the trick play that resulted in Antwaan Randle El's 43-yard touchdown pass to Ward in the fourth quarter.
And, most important, the Steelers had won their fifth Super Bowl trophy, beating the Seahawks, 21-10, to make Roethlisberger the youngest winning quarterback in Super Bowl history."
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