Ben Roethlisberger's question about whether or not he still has 'it' has been answered.
His comments to that effect were made after a five-interception game in a 30-9 loss against Jacksonville Oct. 8 at Heinz Field. His statement, "Maybe I just don't have it anymore," drew national headlines and was talk-show fodder, but Roethlisberger wasn't serious.
What he was serious about, however, was his statement Tuesday that he'd like another shot at the Jaguars, the competitor in him wanting to show the only five-interception game of his career was an outlier.
"I’ll give you guys one guess who you think I want to play," he asked on his weekly radio call to 93.7 The Fan.
Jacksonville, was the reply.
"Maybe so. Obviously any game that we play, it’s the postseason, anybody is going to be difficult," Roethlisberger said. "For me, personally, I’d love to prove that five interceptions wasn’t me in that game."
The Jaguars (10-6) are one of three teams the Steelers (13-3) could face when they open postseason play Jan. 14 at Heinz Field. To get there, the Jaguars would have to defeat Buffalo (9-7) in their Wild Card playoff game this weekend. If Buffalo pulls off the upset, the Steelers would then face the winner of Tennessee (9-7) at Kansas City (10-6).
The Steelers defeated both Kansas City -- 19-13 at Arrowhead Stadium -- and Tennessee -- 40-17 at Heinz Field -- but it's the Jaguars Roethlisberger wants to face the most.
Mike Tomlin, however, wasn't playing along with his quarterback's bravado.
"We have no control over who we play going into the next round," Tomlin said. "We better be ready for whoever it is. That’s my mentality."
To Tomlin's point, since the Steelers don't have control over who wins or loses in the first round, he's not going to spend a lot of time this week worrying about potential opponents. The Steelers are going to practice Wednesday through Friday this week before taking Saturday and Sunday off. And they're not going to focus on potential matchups.
"The structure in which we work – I think it’s good to have continuity in that area, rhythm," Tomlin said. "Guys know what time their cars need to pull up in that lot, etc., what time we’ll be walking through those doors to take the field. What we do will be very specific to our given state and what we are, but the structure in which we work, I did strive for continuity in those areas."
Part of the reason for that could be because the Steelers have already played every team that qualified for the AFC playoffs with the exception of Buffalo. And as the No. 2 seed in the AFC playoffs, the Steelers can't face the Bills unless Buffalo makes an improbable run to the conference championship game.
In the unlikely event that would happen, the Steelers will deal with the situation accordingly.
"It’s the playoffs. They’re all quality teams. I’d probably say that in any year. We’ve had some exposure to some of the top-notch teams, not only in the AFC, but we’ve seen the Vikings as well," Tomlin said. "So, you’re comfortable in that. You know that you’ve been in some in-stadium environments against some of the people who are in the tournament, so you’ve got first-hand knowledge maybe about how you match up. But I’m sure all of the other 11 teams would say the same thing, too. When you get to this point in the journey, it’s less about who you play and more about how you play.
"And, so with respect to that, we respect everyone who’s in the field. We don’t take it for granted. We understand that it’s going to be challenging, but our energy is on where it should be and that’s on us."
Even if Roethlisberger wants his second shot at the Jaguars. Despite sitting out the team's regular season finale against Cleveland last Sunday, he threw 22 touchdown passes and seven interceptions in his final 10 games.
He wants to put an exclamation point on the fact he wasn't being serious when he made his statement about being done.
"Yeah. I think people took that seriously," Roethlisberger said. "We got them fooled, didn’t we?"
