Ben Roethlisberger was back to work on Thursday after missing Wednesday feeling under the weather, and the only thing on his mind was Sunday's game against the Browns.
Roethlisberger wasn't looking back at last Sunday's loss to the Baltimore Ravens, or focusing on the New York Jets-Buffalo Bills game that will have an impact on the Steelers postseason hopes.
"Can't afford to," said Roethlisberger. "We have to focus on what we have to do. That is the most important game of the season for us."
If the Steelers win and the Jets lose to the Bills in Buffalo, then the Steelers are in. But it's about one game only for Roethlisberger.
"We have to take care of our business first," said Roethlisberger. "We just have to do everything we can to get ourselves in."
The Steelers defeated the Browns 30-9 on Nov. 15 at Heinz Field, and Roethlisberger knows the Browns will change things up this week and they are prepared for it.
"They didn't blitz a lot," said Roethlisberger. "We expect a lot of blitzing this time. I am not sure who is going to play, who isn't going to play in the secondary. Sometimes that affects it, if they sit back in coverage or if they want to rush, play man, sit in zone. It's going to have to be a 'be ready to make adjustments on the sideline type of game.'
"We need to be ready for anything and everything. That is the preparation we have been doing all week, getting ourselves ready for a little bit of everything."
More from Ben:
On if it's hard not to target Antonio Brown since he makes so many plays:
"Absolutely. You have a lot of trust and a lot of faith in him and he makes a lot of them. We've made lots of plays over the years, so you have to kind of watch yourself. But I think we've made way more (plays) than we haven't made."On the turnover margin at home being one of the best in the league and the turnover margin away being one of the worst in the league and if there's anything he can fix:
"No. Just keep playing the game. That's the key to being a quarterback—having a short-term memory—for good and bad. We've got enough weapons on our offense, we do enough that I'm just going to keep playing the way I play."On if he likes the mindset of going for it on fourth down, even though Coach Mike Tomlin took heat for it against the Ravens:
"Absolutely. I thought it was a great call, we just didn't execute it. The reason we didn't execute it was because of something very minute, but I liked the call."
On that being the mindset that he and Todd (Haley) have set for the whole locker room and if you guys enjoy that:
"It's been set that way since day one. It's not like we just do it certain games, certain times of the year. That's kind of been our mentality—going for two—that's kind of been our mentality all year."
