Ben Roethlisberger has made several critical throws in the past two games and many during the seven games he won this season with fourth-quarter comeback drives. But what he was throwing around on Wednesday was just a little bit different.
On more than one occasion in a gathering with local media, Roethlisberger talked about not having a chance and that the Steelers are probably the worst of the teams in the NFL postseason and trying not to get beat by 26 points again when they play in Kansas City against the big, bad Chiefs on Sunday.
They call it soft-soaping. Or dispensing something you don’t want to step in.
It’s also his way of motivating his teammates, taking the edge off whatever nervous expectations they are experiencing and getting the Chiefs to believe what everyone outside the Steelers locker room believes — they don’t have a chance in the wild card playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium.
“We probably aren’t supposed to be here, we’re probably not a very good football team,” Roethlisberger said. “Of the 14 teams that are in (the postseason), we’re probably Number 14. We’re double-digit underdogs. So let’s just go play and have fun and see what happens.”
He was just getting started.
“I hope we don’t go in and get blown out by 20 to 30 points,” Roethlisberger said. “We just go in and hope we keep it close.”
And ...
“We’re probably 20-point underdogs and were going to the Number 1 team that won the AFC the last 2 years, arguably the best team in football. We don’t have a chance. Let’s go in and have fun.”
Asked if winning three of the final four games to get into the postseason felt similar to what the Steelers did in 2005, Roethlisberger said, “That team was a really good football team. We’re not as good a football team as we were then.”
Certainly, the expectations are different than the past two times the Steelers appeared in the postseason — in 2017 against Jacksonville and 2021 against the Cleveland Browns. Both those games were at Heinz Field, and the Steelers were AFC North champions and heavy favorites to advance to the next round.
Now they are facing a team that has been to the Super Bowl each of the past two years and is a nearly 13-point favorite to take another step toward a third.
“We’re just going to go out and play care-free and whatever happens, happens,” Roethlisberger said.
A lot of that will depend on Roethlisberger setting the tone for his teammates. And trying to do something they haven’t done much of since the beginning of December — score early. The Steelers have scored just 22 points in the first half of the past seven games and just one touchdown in the four road losses in which they were outscored, 98-13, before halftime against the Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers, Minnesota Vikings and Chiefs.
But the offense looks completely different in the fourth quarter when Roethlisberger is staging one of his career 52 game-winning drives, second-most in NFL history. They have scored 74 points in the fourth quarter alone while winning four of their final six games.
“He’s a future Hall of Famer, so that helps,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, explaining how Roethlisberger continues to lead those comebacks at age 39. “He has the talent and the mind. We’re aware of that. They’re the best — if not the best, one of the best — in football this year.
“He has the aptitude and he has the ability to do those things.”
Roethlisberger said he wanted to come back for another season because he wanted one more shot at the Super Bowl. He was given it with the overtime victory in Baltimore, though not before some anxious moments later that night when it looked as though the Raiders and Chargers might end in a tie, knocking the Steelers from the postseason.
“I wish I would have went to bed instead of staying up and watching it — the stress,” said Roethlisberger, who even had a video of him on social media donning an old Oakland Raiders helmet signed by former kicker Sebastian Janikowski and punter Shane Lechler for good luck. “You go into the evening excited about getting in, then your hopes start to dwindle there for a while and that last drive, you really start to think they’re going to play for a tie. But there are other plans out there.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: January 12, 2022, 6:04 p.m.