BEN ROETHLISBERGER could be forgiven for wondering where it all went wrong. In February, everything looked rosy for the 6ft 5in Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback known as “Big Ben”. He had followed a startling rookie season, in which he compiled a 13-0 won-lost record, by leading his team to the Super Bowl, where he promised to become, at 23 years and 11 months, the youngest starter in his position to win the sport’s biggest prize.
Sure enough, the Steelers won and Roethlisberger even scored one of his team’s touchdowns as they beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10. His overall performance, however, was poor. He recorded the lowest rating of any Super Bowl-winning quarterback and the Steelers’ only touchdown pass of the game was thrown by Antwaan Randle El, a wide receiver.
It got worse. During the off-season he was involved in a life-threatening motorcycle accident, after which he received as much criticism as compassion. He made an impressively rapid recovery, but he has now gone down with appendicitis on the eve of Pittsburgh’s first game in defence of their championship. An emergency appendectomy on Sunday means that he will miss tonight’s match at home to the Miami Dolphins, the showpiece opener to the 2006 regular season.
Roethlisberger expects to be ready for the team’s second game, against the Jacksonville Jaguars next weekend, and it is just as well that he is a quick healer. In June, he needed seven hours of surgery to repair multiple facial fractures and was told that he had been minutes from death because of bleeding after being knocked off his motorbike. But he forfeited much of the sympathy he might have expected when the facts of the accident began to emerge.
Although no NFL player would dream of taking the field without his protective headgear, Roethlisberger was not wearing a helmet when his machine collided with a car at a junction. Although the collision was at relatively low speed, he was thrown head-first into the car’s windscreen, rolled over the bonnet and struck his head on the tarmac. Helmets are optional in Pennsylvania for licensed drivers over 21, but it turned out that Roethlisberger did not have a valid licenc e.
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Bill Cowher, the Steelers head coach, had repeatedly warned Roethlisberger about the dangers of riding without a helmet and Terry Bradshaw, who was the quarterback in the team’s four previous Super Bowl wins, had been blunt in his advice to Roethlisberger before the accident. “Ride it when you retire,” he said.
Remarkably, Roethlisberger, who was fined by police for his failure to wear a helmet, recovered in time to play in the team’s first pre-season game. Perhaps even more remarkably, team-mates believe that he looked to be in the form of his young career, but now he is sidelined again.
In fact, both first-choice quarterbacks could have been absent tonight. Daunte Culpepper, who will make his debut for the Dolphins, has also had brushes with the law and the surgeon’s knife. He required surgery on a serious knee injury in October and was cleared this year of three misdemeanour charges, including fondling a dancer, arising from what became known as the “Love Boat” incident. Four members of the Minnesota Vikings, Culpepper’s previous team, were charged after a boat party on Lake Minnetonka last autumn.
Miami are hoping to become the first team in NFL history to play in a Super Bowl in their home stadium, which will host Super Bowl XLI in February next year. The absence of Roethlisberger tonight may give them a head start in their quest. TELEVISION: Pittsburgh Steelers v Miami Dolphins, Sky Sports Xtra, 1am tomorrow