Steelers All-Time Top 5 QBs: Big Ben & Beyond
Terry Bradshaw sings! Kordell Stewart slashes! Neil O'Donnell ... well, you remember how that tale ends.
It’s time for Big Ben, Terry Bradshaw, Slash, and burn.
1. Ben Roethlisberger
With hindsight being 20/20 and all, it seems almost impossible to believe that Ben Roethlisberger lasted until the 11th pick. If NFL teams knew then what they knew now, the Chargers might have taken Robert Gallery, and Roethlisberger wouldn’t have made it past the Chargers with the fourth pick. As it turns out, the Chargers and Giants battled over Philip Rivers and Eli Manning, the pitiful Browns passed on their QB of the future to get Kellen Winslow (who’ll miss another season after losing a game of chicken with a street curb), and miraculously Roethlisberger fell to the Steelers. – Ryan Wilson, 2005 Pro Football Prospectus.
Oh, Robert Gallery! Oh, the 2005 Prospectus, whose publishing-house editors treated the Football Outsiders team like a bunch of mangy amateurs (we were, but still) and then misspelled Matt Hasselbeck’s name on the cover for us.
Roethlisberger ranked seventh in the NFL in DYAR as a rookie in 2005. He would lead the league in 2014 and finish in the top 10 a total of 11 times. He would also finish 11th three times, including 2006 and 2007, his second and third seasons. He often ranked fifth or sixth in a league which featured prime Tom Brady, Payton Manning, Drew Brees and Rivers. Those passers were usually more efficient than Roethlisberger, but he was more imposing than any of them. If you needed a completion past the sticks on third-and-15, he might be your first choice among that group.
I used to visit Steelers training camp often. My memories of the mid-2010s Roethlisberger involve him jogging out for the start of practice in a sloppy tee-shirt, looking just a little bit tubby, and tossing some deep balls into trash-cans to warm up before donning a practice jersey. I drove to Latrobe from Jets and Bills camps in upstate New York once or twice, and it was startling to shift from, say Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow or EJ Manuel to Roethlisberger. He could probably throw a football through their footballs, causing them to explode in the air.
Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault twice early in his career, and he served a six-game personal-conduct suspension in 2010. I don’t want to trivialize these accusations/incidents, nor do I want to dwell on them, as this series is designed around touchdowns and tall tales. Diana Moskovitz wrote a powerful essay about Roethlisberger’s off-field behavior in 2022, and I encourage everyone to read it. I will be taking the same approach with Deshaun Watson, Michael Vick and others, though Watson’s immediacy and football relevance may warrant a little more discussion.
2. Terry Bradshaw
One of the great joys of this series is being able to talk about the greatest and not-so-greatest quarterbacks of history without having to fit everyone snugly into some all-time pantheon. I don’t have to compare Bradshaw to Dan Fouts, Jim Kelly or Lamar Jackson, only Ben Roethlisberger and Kordell Stewart. I don’t have to weigh in on how much of a – sigh – product of the system he might have been, save to rank him below Big Ben, which I don’t think will be controversial to anyone under the age of 65.
Another of the great joys of this series is to see quarterbacks of the past as they were seen before they became legendary: Jim Kelly as an arrogant young twerp, Bob Griese the moment he donned his glasses, etc. Reconstructing a quarterback’s early or late career takes the bust off the pedestal and breathes life into it. Seeing an all-time great as a not-always-great can bring his accomplishments into sharper relief.
Terry Hanratty, and not Bradshaw, will be Pittsburgh's starting quarterback when the Jets play the Steelers Sunday.
“When Chuck Noll [the Steeler coach] told me that Terry will start, I said that would be fine,” Bradshaw said by telephone yesterday. “I would be disappointed if Terry didn't start, because he came in against Cincinnati and led us to the victory. He deserves to start.”
“I still have my confidence. I have as much confidence as a 10‐year veteran. I feel I can do the job and I feel confident that I will be starting again real soon. Quarterbacks have to be patient, but I find it hard to be so because I'm a very impatient person.
“Some people can come in right away and do a great job, like Joe Namath and Greg Cook. Dennis Shaw has been having a good year, too. But for some others, it takes longer. I hate to classify myself with the others, but that's the way it looks.” – Murray Chass, New York Times, November 6, 1970.
As many history-minded fans know, Bradshaw was dreadful as a rookie in 1970: six touchdowns, 24 interceptions, a 38.1% completion rate. He was better from 1971 through 1973, though by no means great, and Hanratty stuck around as his backup and challenger as the Steelers roster kept improving. Bradshaw ranked 15th in yards, 22nd in yards per attempt, tied for 16th in touchdowns and 17th in passer rating in 1972, when the Steelers went 11-3.
After the paywall: Bradshaw gets benched, Kordell Stewart gets beer dumped on his head, Neil O’Donnell endures Super Bowl heartbreak and Bobby Layne gets pulled over.