As much as Ben Roethlisberger is an incredible mensch when it comes to playing through injury, his return after suffering an ankle injury in the first half has me wondering whether his return was a good idea. He’s running very gingerly, and even a handoff where he has to run a few feet looks extremely painful. The balls he has thrown so far haven’t been very convincing, including a deep ball into traffic.
In the Steelers’ first drive after the half, most of their best plays were runs by Rashard Mendenhall and Isaac Redman; Roethlisberger completed a key pass to Jerricho Cotchery, but this drive was about the run, and I’d expect that to continue. Chris Kemoeatu also took a blatant holding penalty because he needed to protect his quarterback. I wonder if Roethlisberger is offering anything right now that Charlie Batch wouldn’t, and if the Steelers are running a risk of very serious injury by leaving Roethlisberger out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he proved me wrong – that’s just how he is with things like this – but that first drive was not very encouraging.
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