Ben Roethlisberger has won Super Bowls and plenty of games. Heck, last Sunday he passed his idol, John Elway, for fifth place on the all-time quarterback wins list with 149.
One thing he hasn't won is any MVP awards outside of his own locker room -- and even those have been few and far between. Not the league MVP Award. Not even a Super Bowl MVP Award.
That likely won't change in 2020, either, despite Roethlisberger being off to one of the best starts of his career.
Look at the people being mentioned for the award just over a quarter of the way into the season, and you'll see many of the usual suspects. Russell Wilson of the Seahawks, who also has never won the award, is probably the front-runner, but he's been in the conversation each year for the better part of the decade. Patrick Mahomes, who won it in 2018, is high on lists, and another former winner, Aaron Rodgers, is as well. Tom Brady, who owns three NFL MVP awards, is being mentioned, as is his opponent in Sunday's game in Tennessee, Titans' quarterback Ryan Tannehill.
Despite having the Steelers (5-0) off to their best start since 1978 heading into Sunday's game against the Titans (5-0), there's been nary a mention of Roethlisberger in the MVP race.
The only players ahead of Roethlisberger on the all-time wins list -- Brady, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees -- have all won multiple league MVP awards.
Heck, at this point, many in the national media aren't even talking about him as the Comeback Player of the Year award. That talk has all centered around Washington quarterback Alex Smith and Patriots quarterback Cam Newton.
But for Roethlisberger, the awards aren't what matters. It's all about the wins and losses.
That's why he's not concerned that he's averaging 235.6 yards passing per game right now, the lowest of his career since 2008. That also happens to be the last time the Steelers won the Super Bowl and the 17-year-veteran knows that it's all about the team.
"We’re not putting up gaudy passing numbers right now because we haven’t needed to," said Roethlisberger, who has thrown 11 touchdown passes against just one interception this season and has a 109.1 passer rating.
"I’d like to think that if needed to, we could do that because we’ve got some amazing pass catchers that can do great things with the ball in their hands. But what we’ve been able to do right now is win football games. That’s what’s most important."
And Roethlisberger has been managing the game like another coach on the field.
Early in his career, he balked at being called a "game manager," because of what he felt were negative connotations regarding his talent. And back then, under then-head coach Bill Cowher, it wasn't true. Roethlisberger would often throw the ball a lot early in games to get a lead and then the Steelers would turn things over to their running game and defense to close the game out.
It was similar to what they did in last Sunday's 38-7 win over the Browns, a game after which Roethlisberger joked that the Steelers had run "Bill Cowher's offense."
Now, Roethlisberger truly is managing the game. He's making adjustments at the line of scrimmage. He's getting the ball to the open man. He's winning games with his mind as much as he is his physical talents.
"I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing the last five weeks," Roethlisberger said. "I’m trying to get us in the best play I can. Trying not to turn the ball over and just doing things to help the team win the game. If we keep winning football games, I’ll keep trying to do that."
That's been part of his growth as a player. Where once he bristled at being called a game manager, he now embraces the role.
"It’s not something where you flip a light switch on and you can probably point to a date or significant circumstance where it transpired like Eureka," Mike Tomlin said recently of Roethlisberger's more cerebral approach to the game. "It’s just a continual growth and development over the course of a career which, through an unbelievable blessing, has been an extremely long one. It’s reasonable to expect him to have a different level of awareness and be able to call upon that in circumstances. He’s been in circumstances that most of us won’t be in and he has seen a lot of it over the years."
It's something he's had the ability to do for quite some time, but maybe didn't always have the luxury of doing. After the team's last Super Bowl run in 2010, what was a shutdown defense began to age. Stars retired. And while the Steelers have had some good defenses since then, they didn't have a dominant unit capable of shutting opponents down.
Now they do.
And that has allowed the 38-year-old Roethlisberger, who is coming back from surgery to repair three torn flexor tendons in his throwing elbow, to ease back into things this season.
He's had to work hard to get to where he's now at. And he's not stopped working. A few weeks ago, he thought his footwork in the pocket was lacking, so he spent the day working with quarterback coach Matt Canada on his footwork in the pocket.
Last week, he felt he was missing too many deep passes. So, he and Canada set up trash cans at practice during special teams periods for the quarterback to throw 40- and 50-yard passes into. He responded by connecting on all three of his deep passes against the Browns.
"It’s just little things. I’ve talked about each week there’s been something I wanted to work on," Roethlisberger said. "What better time than in practice to drill some things, footwork, deep ball things? I’ll just continue to try to get better. I don’t ever want to get worse, obviously. I want to try little things I can do to keep trying to improve my game."
The physical skills are still there. His mental game is more sharp than ever, honed by watching the 2019 season transpire from the sideline while he was injured.
But the national awards? Roethlisberger won't hold his breath on those. He didn't spend nearly a year in rehab working his way back for those.
"I just wanted to be out there with my teammates," he said. "I’m not trying to prove anything to the outside world. I just wanted to keep playing the game that I love with the teammates that I love for the fans that I love. That’s what has been most important in my mind."
