When Ben Roethlisberger takes the field against the Eagles on Sunday, he's going to be trying to do something that no Steelers quarterback has ever done in the Super Bowl era: win a game in Philadelphia.
Although Big Ben has only played in Philly once during his 13-year career, he remembers that game vividly, and that's mainly because he almost decided to quit football after the 15-6 loss in 2008.
During an interview with 93.7 the Fan, a CBS Sports Radio station, in Pittsburgh this week, Roethlisberger talked about how close he came to retirement after being sacked eight times and almost breaking his hand in the nine-point loss.
"I'm not a big 'remembering games' type guy, especially losses, but that's one that I do remember vividly," Roethslisberger said of the 2008 game. "I remember getting sacked eight or nine times. I remember driving home from the airport after that game and thinking to myself like, 'Do I want to keep doing this? Do I really want to keep playing football?'"
As it turns out, Steelers fans should probably send a thank you note to Brett Keisel, because he's the guy who talked Big Ben out of quitting.
"No joke, I called Brett Keisel and we were talking, and he was like, 'Why don't you just stop over?'" Roethlisberger said. "It was kind of on my way home. I stopped over at his house and sat down in his basement for a couple of hours and we just talked and had a couple of beers and I was literally like, 'This is not fun, this is not really worth it.' We talked and got over it."
This basically means that Keisel is the retroactive MVP of the Steelers' 2008 season. If Keisel hadn't talked Roethlisberger out of retirement, then the Steelers wouldn't have gone on to win the Super Bowl that year, and if they don't go on to win the Super Bowl that year -- you know what, I'm not even going to finish this thought.
