Now, if you remember, I posted something the night before the Super Bowl about Big Ben not being as "clutch" or as "good" as the media liked to make him out to be. After the Super Bowl, I think my point has been proven even more.
Let's go back to his career numbers from my earlier posts and we'll compare him to Rodgers, who, up until this year, has been stigmatized by not being a "clutch" QB when it mattered.
Big Ben
229.61 YPG
1.47 TD
.88 INT
63.1% Comp
92.5 QB Rating
Rodgers
270 YPG
1.8 TD
.68 INT
64.4% Comp
98.4 QB Rating
Rodgers has a 49.39 yard, .23 TD, .2 INT, 1.3% Completion, and 5.9 point QB rating advantage over Roethlisberger. But many traditional NFL fans will say "screw stats, I'll take rings". Okay, fine, but what has Ben done compared to Rodgers to get those rings?? Let's look at playoff QB play. After each stat, in parenthesis, I will put the discrepancy between regular season stats and playoff stats. For INT stats, I'm going to use the "-" sign to represent a decline in play and a "+" to indicate a player playing better because the lower the number, the better.
Roethlisberger
220.08 YPG (-9.53 yards)
1.46 TDs (-.01 TD)
1.23 INTs (-.35 INT)
61.2% Comp (-1.9%)
84.5 QB Rating (-8 Points)
Rodgers
303.4 YPG (+33.4 yards)
2.6 TD (+.8)
.6 INT (+.08)
67,8% Comp (+3.4%)
112.6 QB Rating (+14.2 points)
Differences between the 2 in the postseason
Rodgers +83.32 YPG, +1.14 TD, +.63 INT, +6.6% Comp and +28.1 QB Rating points.
So Rodgers outperforms Big Ben "when it counts". Rodgers also plays BETTER in important games than he does in regular season games. So when people are talking about Ben being "clutch", what are they talking about?? Obviously, all they can think about is the Santonio Holmes TD pass vs the Carinals in 2008.
Let's look at this year's Super Bowl and prove all that BS wrong. First of all "clutch" QBs shouldn't start out a game by throwing 2 INTs. Even after that, the Steelers D made stop after stop in the 2nd half, but Ben couldn't make all the plays a "clutch" QB is supposed to make. Given the ball, two minutes, and a timeout, Ben Roethlisberger had all the ingredients for another "clutch" Super Bowl game winning drive. He fizzled out quickly, converting only one first down. The Green Bay defensive backs were without former DPOY Charles Woodson and rookie sensation Sam Shields. To go with 5 or 6 DBs, the Packers had to utilize 3 safeties and 3 corners. Tramon Williams, Pat Lee, and Jarrett Bush were the 3 corners and Nick Collins (who was battling dehydration), Charlie Peprah, and Atari Bigby were the 3 safeties. Still, Ben couldn't take advantage. On a night where Rodgers was taking advantage of a secondary with William Gay, Bryant McFadden, Ike Taylor, Ryan Clark and Defensive Player of the Year Troy Polamalu, Roethlisberger couldn't get it done against a secondary filled with 4 guys who weren't opening day starters.
This brings me to my point on the whole issue. Before you call someone clutch, look at the other factors first. For a a few weeks, Mark Sanchez was being touted as "clutch". The Jets had come off of 3 big last second/overtime wins. Let's look at some specifics. Take the Houston game. The Jets needed a touchdown to win the game and there was under a minute left. The Jets called a deep route for Braylon Edwards. The DB for the Texans from the snap let him have the sideline. Mistake one. Anyone with a football brain knows, if you're going to give up a completion with less than 2 minutes left in the game when a team has no timeouts, you force him to the middle of the field. That's where all of your help is and even if he catches it you're forcing the opponent to run and waste time and a down clocking the ball. Instead, Sanchez floated a deep ball to Edwards who caught it and stepped out of bounds, stopping the clock. He was open over the top because of, mistake 2, the Texans safety realizing too late that Edwards, the Jets' deep threat, was going deep. He was there a second too late and it allowed Edwards to make the catch. Had it been a more disciplined defense, Edwards would have been forced inside and the safety would have taken away the deep route. Before you crown someone as "Clutch" take a look at his body of work. Sanchez has been marginal at best overall in his career. He's very erratic, and the Jets can win with him throwing for under 100 yards. He's an above average game manager and that's okay, but he's not "clutch" and he's not going to win you a lot of games without a lot of help.
Now, look at the Packers' game plan in the Super Bowl. They tied the St. Louis Rams for the fewest rushing attempts in the Super Bowl for a winning team with 13. They gave Aaron Rodger the reins to the offense against the league's number 1 scoring defense and he had a near flawless game. Had his WRs not dropped 5 balls, he may have had one of the best days for a Super Bowl QB, but that's not the point. On the final drive of the game for the Packers, Rodgers marched the Packers down the field. He didn't hand the ball off and try to milk the clock with a 3 point lead. Mike McCarthy felt comfortable with giving Rodgers the ball and letting him throw it. It ended up with a field goal which was enough to force Ben to start airing it out. The Packers D quickly shut it down, and the "clutch" guy had just lost to the guy who "couldn't win when it mattered". In one Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers has the same number of TD passes, 3, as Ben does in 3 games. Rodgers was not intercepted, Ben has been intercepted 5 times in 3 games and at least once in each game. To me, clutch shouldn't mean that a guy led one final drive to score while a team was in prevent. Let's be real here...the Eli Manning pass to Tyree, the Roethlisberger pass to Holmes, those were marginal throws and timless catches. Not even amazing, timeless. Those catches will be shown to our grandkids' kids. To me, clutch should be the guys like Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers. The guys who will win you games with their arms without the theatrics. The guys who won't blow games by throwing costly interceptions. 14 of the Packers' 31 points came directly because of Roethlisberger. Clutch? Hardly.
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