Ben Roethlisberger on sidelines Sunday night. (AP)
Ben Roethlisberger was scratched from the Pittsburgh Steelers' starting lineup on Sunday. The team ultimately lost in overtime to the Baltimore Ravens 20-17.
But he was suited up on the sideline, listed as active and the television audience watched him in uniform, wearing a headset and giving encouragement to back-up quarterback Dennis Dixon.
Roethisberger suffered a concussion seven days prior during the team's 27-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He practiced with the team prior to the Titans game but in the end he sat.
The controversy, if there really is one, is the disconnect many observers have noted between his apparent ability to practice with the team, his appearance on the sideline as a third option for the Steelers last night and the ultimate decision not to start.
Even his own teammate, wide receiver Hines Ward spoke to NBC about head scratching going on inside the Steelers' locker room concerning Roethisberger's unavailability for the game.
That's where the NFL came into the equation. With its new attitude towards the danger of playing after a brain injury, which by the way, is what a concussion is, Roethlisberger's status was discussed more than in Pittsburgh.
The league has been mired in concussion examinations for most of the last 45-60 days. It was called in for questioning by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives where critics of the league aired their complaints and Commissioner Roger Goodell was on the defensive.
But he promised more study of the situation surrounding the cause and treatment of concussions and he delivered fast. Only last week the doctor who headed up the league's committee on concussion injuries resigned and Goodell issued a statement about the necessity of teams letting medical advice rule the day rather than concern for a win-loss record.
The NFL went so far as to say that independent neurologists will be utilized for consults about whether a player's injury should allow him to play. Presumably that is to counter the charge that team physicians can't be trusted to scream down coaches and GM's who help a player get back on the field.
Kurt Warner was concussed the same weekend as Roethlisberger and was on the sideline in street clothes. It didn't seem like a difficult decision for Warner and the Arizona Cardinals to make. But the Steelers and Roethlisberger went from downplaying the incident and Ben's symptoms to suddenly pulling him from the starting lineup.
Whether it was independent medical advice or pressure from the league, the end result was that caution wasn't thrown to the wind. Here's betting that if this happened in September prior to the concussion uproar, we would have seen Big Ben out there against the Ravens.
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Comments
After those close losses to New England, Cincy, and the Colts, the Ravens finally have one go their way, against the Steelers no less, the rest of the schedule looks like wins with the exception of Pittsburgh again. 10-6 or maybe even 11-5 will definitely get you in the play-offs this year.
Val: they just don't seem to be able to score as they did earlier in season.
Thankfully Roethlisberger did not play. The so-called independent medical experts Maroon and Lovell who cleared him on Monday thought again after Ben kept complaining. Note these independent experts are on the NFL m-TBI committee and own the test, Impact, the NFL uses to determine the cognitive state of players. One might ask, how does a glassy eyed player who suffered a head injury as a result of a motorcycle accident cleared 24 hours later and practiced. Does ImPact work? Or does the Steeler medical staff interpret the results to suit the teams needs and not the players.
Warner has been around long enough and made enough not to get caught up in the nonsense.
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