Week 13 Judgements: Big Ben reliable as clockwork
For the life of me, I can't understand why people say that Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger doesn't deserve consideration for MVP. He does, and he proved it again Sunday night.
Sure, I know he won't win it. Peyton Manning will, but that doesn't mean Big Ben doesn't deserve to be in on the conversation. He does, and watching him operate in Sunday night's 17-16 defeat of Jacksonville demonstrated why.
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| Ben Roethlisberger has forced Tommy Maddox to get comfortable as a backup.(Getty Images) |
For the record, the win was Roethlisberger's 10th straight. He hasn't lost. He has beaten Philadelphia. And he has beaten New England. And tell me another quarterback -- including Manning -- who can say that this season.
Critics complain that he doesn't throw 20 passes a game. So what? That's not the measure of an MVP. Talk about that when you're marking your ballot for offensive player of the year -- which, by the way, Manning will win, too. Roethlisberger delivers when he has to; just ask the Dallas Cowboys. They blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead to Roethlisberger earlier this year, a crushing defeat that put their season on the elevator going down.
Critics also complain that he's surrounded by an abundance of talent. Let's see, he won his second straight without wide receiver Plaxico Burress. He won four straight without running back Duce Staley. And the talent he has around him then and now is basically the talent Tommy Maddox had when the Steelers sagged to 6-10 last year.
Oh, and one more thing: Peyton Manning isn't surrounded by an abundance of talent? I'm not making the case against Manning. Indianapolis goes nowhere without the guy. But where is Pittsburgh without Roethlisberger? Not on top of the AFC.
All I know is Roethlisberger missed only three of 17 passes against Jacksonville, including that spike, and achieved a near-perfect passer rating of 158 -- his seventh game with a rating of 100 or better. Give the guy a break. He deserves consideration for MVP, along with Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb, New England's Tom Brady and San Diego's Drew Brees. So how come he's not getting it?
Me-pinions or what we learned from this weekend
1. I think we can look at Sunday's come-from-behind win as a defining moment in the career of Cincinnati's Carson Palmer. Not only did he throw three touchdown passes -- running his total to seven the last two games -- and pass for a career-high 382 yards, he did it against Baltimore. Most important, he drove the club 60 yards in 1:42 for the game-winning field goal and rallied it from a 20-3 deficit.
2. New England is 11-0 with Corey Dillon; San Diego is 6-0 with Keenan McCardell. Now Dillon meets Cincinnati, his old team, and McCardell meets Tampa Bay, his old team. "Who do we play next week?" McCardell asked after Sunday's game. He knows, and he knows what it means to him. "It ain't here yet," he said.
3. When Arizona's Dennis Green looks back at the season and wonders how it all unraveled he should take a long, hard look at himself. He's the guy who changed quarterbacks after the Cards won three of four with Josh McCown, and he's the guy who has to live with the results. Since making the change, the club is 0-3, has been outscored 74-25 and its quarterbacks have two touchdowns, 10 interceptions. Genius, poor genius.
