Defense may win championships, but we don't see any safeties dating Victoria Secret models. That doesn't mean you can skip the All-Maxim defense, though.
You might expect to find an off-duty NFL quarterback lounging in the VIP section of a club in Vegas or South Beach. But if you’re looking for Ben Roethlisberger, check the dive bars across the river from downtown Pittsburgh. “Pittsburgh is Iron City, Yuengling, and Rolling Rock,” Roethlisberger says. “It’s about the tough bars where the steelworkers and the coal miners hang out. It’s great to have a beer with them.”
After a disappointing 2006 season following his near-fatal motorcycle crash, Roethlisberger proved last fall, in his fourth year, that he truly belongs among the NFL’s elite QBs. He finished behind only Tom Brady in passing efficiency and earned his first Pro Bowl nod. He also showed he can take over a game—as he did against Baltimore in week nine, passing for five TDs in the first half. It was a statistically perfect game (with a max rating of 158.3), one of two in 2007 and three in his career, which ties him with Peyton Manning for the league record. In a generation of QBs who seem to have been groomed for the position—Brady, Philip Rivers, Mannings II and III—Roethlisberger is a throwback: a sturdy, hard-nosed everyman who can be relied on to make the small plays as well as the big. “He’s got everything,” says ESPN NFL writer and analyst John Clayton. “He’s tough, physical, and a good leader. Whenever he needs to make a drive happen, he can.”
