Super Bowl XLV: Why Big Ben is Overrated

America's biggest sporting spectacle has all the makings of a memorable game. A high-flying offense against a bruising defense and two historic franchises searching for yet another ring to add to their collections. I am in particular interested in the QB battle. I recently had a debate about the merits of Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers. It's often stated that quarterbacks are ultimately measured by how much they win. In particular, Super Bowls. This would clearly make Big Ben one of history's best right? Indeed, if he wins tonight, he'd join Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Troy Aikman as winners of 3 or more titles. Truly elite company. Yet I will contend that Big Ben has no business being listed among those elites, that he's actually overrated, and that wins are not the be-all and end-all with which to measure a QB's career. Let me now explain why.

9-21, 123 yards, 0 Touchdowns-2 Interceptions, QB rating-22.6

Those are the stats for Ben Roethlisberger's first Super Bowl win. Pretty bad right? You may relay the common respone of "who cares what his numbers were? He won". He did win, or more specifically, the Steelers won. The numbers, however, can't be ignored. Especially when they are among the worst QB numbers in Super Bowl history. Time will likely forget these numbers though, and only the fact that Ben Roethlisberger won that year's Super Bowl will remain in our minds. We won't remember the actual fact that he did just about everything he could to lose his team that game, or that the refs were simply awful. Nope, all we'll know is that Big Ben and the Steelers beat the Seahawks.

Football is often used as the gold standard for team sports. 11 men fulfilling different roles to accomplish a team goal. So why then, in this "ultimate team sport" do we only hand the QB the distinction of the win? Why don't we ever see stats on how many postseason wins Troy Polamalu has? Isn't his role on the defense just as big as Big Ben's on offense? We never compare running backs by number of wins. It's almost entirely based on actual stats. So why should quarterbacks be any different? You might say that QB's are easily the most influential position in football. You'd be right, but they have zero influence on defense. You know, only 50 percent of the game. Similar to how a pitcher in baseball relies on his batters for him to get the win, QB's need the defense to get wins, usually anyway. A perfect example of this is Aaron Rodgers playoff game against the Cardinals last year. He had 4 TD's to 1 INT, yet the Packers lost 51-45 to the Cardinals. Aaron Rodgers surely did enough to help his team to the win, but his defense let him down. This year, the Packers D is vastly improved, and the results show it. Big Ben on the other hand has always had the safety net of an elite defense. It bails him out if he has a bad game (which is fairly often). The perfect example of this is of course the above mentioned Super Bowl. Being a QB for the Steelers is the football equivalent of being a pitcher for the Yankees.

I am not saying that Big Ben is not a good QB. He's easily a top ten quarterback. It's just when people start to overrate him that I take exception. He is not a top 5 QB in the league, and he's nowhere near a top QB in the history of the league. I am not alone with this line of thinking. In 7 seasons in the league he's made one Pro Bowl. Despite having plenty of team success and being in an era where making a Pro Bowl is not that hard (Matt Cassel anyone?), he's made just 1. It was 4 years ago. To put it differently, he's just once been considered one of the top 3 QB's in the AFC! "So what if the fans don't like him.", you might say. Well, they aren't the only ones not so high on Big Ben. He was also voted among the top 5 most overrated players by his peers in a Sports Illustrated poll in 2009. That's not so long ago. I must be on to something, as neither the fans nor his peers rate him as high as his reputation merits. I think pro-football-reference.com rates Big Ben correctly using their "Similar Players" calculation. This lists players with careers of similar quality and shape. Big Ben's career is comparable to Eli Manning, Carson Palmer, David Gerrard, Jake Delhomme, etc. All pretty good to good quarterbacks, but not exactly a who's who of best QB's in the history of the game.

I contend that the only reason Big Ben finds himself with a much better reputation than the others is because he was fortunate enough to have been drafted by a great franchise. Doesn't mean he's not good, just that he's not as good as people think he is. If he indeed does win tonight, he will be a member of that elite group in name only. Winning should not define the quarterback position just like stats shouldn't. It's the overrall body of work that needs to be taken into account when comparing Big Ben to the greats. Keep that in mind tonight. Just know that no matter what happens in the game, he's still not in the category of Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

Prediction for Super Bowl XLV

Green Bay: 31
Pittsburgh: 24

It really does pain me to even think that the Packers will win, but I think their offense is too good in the dome setting for anyone to stop them.