BEN ROETHLISBERGER
Quarterback
BALTIMORE – He completed 59.6 percent of his passes and didn't turn the ball over. He threw two touchdown passes and ran for a third. And the best play he made was taking a sack that forced the Steelers to punt the ball back to the Ravens with a 23-16 lead and less than one minute left in the game. That's because throwing the ball away would have stopped the clock, but taking the sack kept it ticking.
Ben Roethlisberger completed 28-of-47 for 270 yards, with two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a rating of 89.8. He also rushed twice for 4 yards and another touchdown. But more important than those numbers was the way Roethlisberger was in command of the game and made the right decisions at the right time.
He is the Steelers Digest Player of the Week.
Also considered was Joshua Dobbs, who was only on the field for one play, but it was one of the biggest plays of the game. The Steelers were facing a second-and-20 from their own 5-yard line, and because Roethlisberger had been shaken up on the previous play, he was on the sideline. It was the fourth quarter, and the Steelers had a 20-13 lead. Dobbs converted the situation with a 22-yard strike to JuJu Smith-Schuster, and then yielded to Roethlisberger, who returned to the game and moved the offense to a field goal that extended the lead to 10 points.
Others who made noteworthy contributions included James Conner, who rushed for 107 yards on 24 carries (4.5 average) and caught seven passes for 78 more yards and a touchdown; Joe Haden, who had four tackles and was a big part of a secondary that held John Brown to three catches for 17 yards and Michael Crabtree to three catches for 32 yards; Mike Hilton, who had four tackles, including one for a loss on a third down inside the 10-yard line that forced the Ravens to settle for a field goal; Smith-Schuster, who caught seven passes for 78 yards and converted several third down situations; Antonio Brown, who caught five passes for 42 yards and a touchdown; and Stephon Tuitt, whose sack of Joe Flacco with less than a minute to play virtually ended any realistic chance the Ravens had at a tying touchdown.
