Despite no practice, Roethlisberger leads Steelers to easy win over Bengals

Less apparently is more when it comes to preparation time for Ben Roethlisberger.

Much like Allen Iverson did two decades ago, Roethlisberger stated his case Sunday that practice is overrated. The 17-year veteran didn’t look like a quarterback who didn’t take a snap all week in practice judging by the way he zipped the ball around Heinz Field in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 36-10 victory against the Cincinnati Bengals.

One day after being activated from the reserve/covid-19 list, Roethlisberger reached season highs with four touchdowns and 333 yards passing to help the Steelers keep their perfect record intact at 9-0.

“I felt nice and rested coming into today,” Roethlisberger said. “I’m trying to talk coach into seeing if I can take next week off, too.”

It couldn’t hurt. Not after the Steelers posted their most decisive win since the last time they played at home — way back on Oct. 18 — when they beat the Cleveland Browns, 38-7. This one enabled the Steelers to become the 21st team since the 1970 merger to win nine in a row at the outset of a season.

Roethlisberger threw two touchdown passes to rookie Chase Claypool and one each to Diontae Johnson and JuJu Smith-Schuster. Chris Boswell kicked three field goals.

Roethlisberger completed 27 of 46 passes before giving way to backup Mason Rudolph in the fourth quarter. He didn’t throw an interception for the third game in a row, and he wasn’t sacked for the third time in the past four games.

“There was less anxiety in terms of dealing with him in these circumstances maybe than some of the circumstances he and I have been through in the past where his health was a factor in terms of availability,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “His health was not a factor, so we had very little reservations about his ability to perform once we got him to the stadium.”

For the season, Roethlisberger has thrown 22 touchdown passes against four interceptions.

When Roethlisberger was placed on the reserve/covid-19 Tuesday, it took him out of the practice equation for the week. He takes Wednesdays off during the season, so that wasn’t an issue. But Roethlisberger also rested Thursday before throwing 50 passes Friday while quarantining at his home.

He rejoined the Steelers on Saturday for an extended walk-through that was designed to get Roethlisberger up to speed on the gameplan against the Bengals.

“I wanted to kind of let it just rest,” Roethlisberger said. “It’s at that point in the season when not throwing is a good thing. I iced it a lot.”

Johnson caught six passes for 116 yards, Smith-Schuster had nine receptions for 77 yards and Claypool had four catches for 56 yards.

The win was the 11th in a row for the Steelers in the series, counting postseason, and they have beaten the Bengals in 14 of the past 15 matchups.

Rookie No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow fared no better than his predecessors in his indoctrination to the series. Burrow completed 21 of 40 passes for 213 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions, and he was sacked four times.

“I think it’s very important to welcome quarterbacks in the AFC North in an appropriate way,” said T.J. Watt, who had two sacks.

Although the Bengals rushed for 139 yards, the Steelers didn’t allow Cincinnati to convert a single third down in 13 tries.

Unlike the previous two weeks, when the Steelers came back from 10-point second-half deficits at Baltimore and Dallas, they never trailed against the last-place Bengals (2-6-1).

One trend, however, carried over from the previous two games. The Steelers again struggled to find a running game. The Steelers fell short of the 50-yard mark for the third game in a row, finishing with 44 yards on 20 attempts.

“Obviously, we didn’t run the ball well today, but we did other things well,” Roethlisberger said. “We put points on the board. We scored when we needed to score. We converted when we had to do that. So we shouldn’t get so caught up in yards per carry or total yards rushing or things like that because it really comes down to winning the football game first, which we did, and everything kind of falls into place from there.”

The Steelers took the lead for good after a fumble recovery on a punt return set up Boswell’s 41-yard field goal less than four minutes into the game. They led 12-0 after the first quarter, 22-7 at halftime and 29-7 entering the fourth quarter.

Roethlisberger’s start, though, was as turbulent as the 22-mph winds that blew toward the south end zone at kickoff. Through the first four series, he had five completions in 10 attempts for 42 yards.

Things started clicking after that. Roethlisberger finished the first half 17 of 27 for 243 yards passing, the ninth-highest first-half total in his 17-year career.

The Steelers held a 6-0 lead when Roethlisberger pushed the Steelers down the field with three completions for 74 yards that culminated with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Johnson with 1 minute, 51 seconds left in the first quarter.

Roethlisberger opened with a 46-yard completion to Johnson on a deep throw down the left sideline.

“That was the spark that got us going deep down the field like that,” Johnson said. “Get us into good field position and wind up in the end zone. That gave us the lead that we needed and we just kept going and adding on to it the rest of the game.”