Ben Roethlisberger reverted back to his old ways
This may not be it for Ben Roethlisberger, but if this was to be his last game in as a member of the Steelers, we certainly would have hoped that it would have turned out better than this. Forget what the box score will try to tell you. While it’s true that Ben ultimately finished with 501 passing yards and 4 touchdowns, it came at the hands of a prevent defense that held a 28-0 lead since the first quarter. In reality, this was all garbage-time work by Roethlisberger, as the Browns clearly milked the clock with a massive lead.
What we do know is that his first-half was bad enough to completely take the Steelers out of the game. While the fumble on the first play clearly wasn’t his fault (Maurkice Pouncey had an erred snap that resulted in a touchdown for Cleveland), it’s hard to give a lot of excuses for your quarterback when he throws 4 interceptions – all of which resulted in points for the Cleveland Browns.
After a season in which Roethlisberger posted 33 touchdowns to 10 interceptions, we would have hoped that this impressive ratio would have continued into the playoffs. Unfortunately, he reverted back to his old ways and showed to be the same quarterback that has thrown 70 interceptions in his last 73 regular-season starts. This game had a very ‘2017 Jaguars’ feel as Pittsburgh started off the exact same way against Jacksonville in the playoffs. Ben dug a hole that this team could not climb out of.