Ben Roethlisberger staged a powerful comeback after staying away from the field for 9 1/2 months, and led the Pittsburgh Steelers to a 28-10 victory against the Cleveland Browns.
The ace quarterback completed a four-game suspension on violations of the personal conduct policies of the NFL. He was accused of sexually assaulting a Georgia College student in March but regained entry into the game as he was not charged with any felonies.
He threw three touchdown passes during the game with 29 yards to Mike Wallace, 14 yards to Heath Miller and 8 yards to Hines Ward. He finished 16 of 27 for 257 yards in what was his first regular-season game since the suspension in March. Except for 20 angry sign-carrying protesters outside Heinz Field, none of the 65,168 people present in the field demonstrated any outrage; in fact, they all cheered for him during the game.
“Before the game I got emotional. To hear the cheers was something special. I got a little emotional,” said Roethlisberger.
Cleveland put up a good performance with quarterback Colt McCoy, who was previously with Texas, completing 23 of 33 passes for 281 yards. His stellar performance, however, failed to encourage his team and they remained mostly in the struggling phase during the game.
Their 10-28 loss to the Steelers became an obvious affair after a strong first quarter when they took a 3-0 lead. They failed to score in the second and third and the Steelers used this opportunity to score 7 in each thus cementing their road to victory with scoring 14 in the last quarter.
