The Best Steelers Quarterback Ever: Bradshaw or Roethlisberger?

Ben Roethlisberger Pros and Cons

Over his career, Ben has thrown a fair amount of interceptions, however in comparison, he does not have near the number of interceptions Bradshaw had. Ben has 195, which is .02 picks per attempt, .87 per game, and 11.47 a year. Whereas Bradshaw had .05 per attempt, 1.25 a game, and averaged 15 a season. Granted had Noll utilized the shotgun formation, perhaps that would have lowered Bradshaw’s interception ratio.

Nonetheless, Bradshaw took risks despite being skillful. Ben’s low interception rate is because of his skill. Although in Bradshaw’s career, he mainly had two receivers Swann and Stallworth, Ben has benefited from having not only Hine Ward and Antonio Brown, he had one of the best tight ends in Heath Miller. Also, he had other talented receivers such as JuJu Smith -Schuster,  Santonio Holmes,  Mike Wallace, Emmanuel Sanders, and Martavis Bryant, and even his new target Chase Claypool. Not to mention the running backs who have excelled at catching the ball Le’Veon Bell and James Conner.

Big Ben’s drawbacks, if he has any, are two-fold. First and foremost, Roethlisberger has a horrible sack ratio over his career.  In 17 seasons so far, Ben has been sacked 511 times, and that number will increase before he retires. Over his career, that comes to 2.28 sacks per game and 30 a season. Roethlisberger would have had more sacks, but thanks to his athletic ability he has managed to avoid several other sacks by wrestling away from the defender to extend the play and or make a completion or throw the ball away. In Ben’s defense, unlike Bradshaw, he never had a quality offensive line until 2015. Since 2015 he has only had 92 sacks averaging 15.3 a season or 1.41 a game. Before 2015 he had 419 sacks averaging 38 a season and 2.63 per game. The change for Roethlisberger came when the Steelers signed 6’9” 320 pound Alejandro Villanueva to play alongside center Center and future hall of famer Maurkice Pouncy and guard  David DeCastro.

Roethlisberger’s second weakness, if it can be considered one, is a consistency issue. When Ben is on a roll, no defense in the league can stop him. In many cases, that’s when there’s a sense of urgency, or he is running the no-huddle.  However, in the middle of the game, sometimes his choice of play-calling has a lot to be desired, making Steelers fans question who is calling the plays.  Case in point just look at the Steelers’ last game against the Titans this season; he had a less than stellar second half and three interceptions in the game. Or most of the games he played against Tom Brady.

So then, with all of that, which quarterback is better? Terry Bradshaw or Ben Roethlisberger?