Big Ben Snubbed

Recently, the NFL Network's Top 100 Players list named Ben Roethlisberger as the 41st best player in the NFL, and a very beautiful and intelligent woman wrote a mini-blog/rant stating her feelings regarding this and postulating that the ranking was way too low. Is it? Let's take a look.
    Roethlisberger, the 29-yr old Steelers quarterback, m...ade an instant impact in the NFL when he guided his team to a 15-1 record, with he himself having a 13-0 rookie record-unprecedented in NFL history, and an appearance in the AFC championship game that year. From 2004 on, "Big Ben" became one of the most clutch quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, and when the game was on the line the Steelers were a good bet to win the game. A career .631 completion percentage shows that Roethlisberger is an efficient quarterback, but the numbers only tell half of the story. Big Ben has a TD:INT ratio of 144:86 for his career, good if not very good, and boasts similar stats across the board for his career. His stats for the 2010 season were even better as he had a 17:5 ratio of TD:INT in 12 games (which would average out to 21:7 over 16 games). Let's look past the numbers, though, and find the reasons why Big Ben is to be considered as one of the best quarterback in the NFL.
    Fans (mainly of other teams) make too much of sexual assault allegations against Roethlisberger—he is a football player, and people pay to watch him on the field, not off of it. So we're not even gonna talk about SkanksAreUs.com past this point. Ok? We good? You, in the back row, we good? A'ight... Let's take a look at the QBs in front of him and recount their attributes and the reasons they're where they are: Tom Brady has cemented himself atop the list with his "Super" success, and rightly so. Ok, I've said enough about him. (blech...I need a wet nap for me and my keyboard) Aaron Rodgers doesn't yet have the body of work of some of the others, but his value, worth, and prowess are unquestionable. There isn't anything on the field he can't do. Go ahead, name something...I'll wait. Thought so. I truly believe he will most likely see another Ring on his finger before all is said and done. Peyton Manning has won one Super Bowl, has been to another, and still has gaudy numbers so he still has enough cache to keep him at #3. I will admit, though, that he has become less clutch over the last couple of years and is facing OLine and potential WR problems this year. So... That addresses the ones in front of Ben as far as this writer sees it. The NFL Network, though, sees it differently. Why? Do other QBs have other things in their favor? Does it even matter? Let's look now at the other QBs listed and at some of the reasonings tossed about regarding why Big Ben may have been rated low.
     Some have said that Roethlisberger's Super Bowls can be attributed to great defense, but I would argue that the Colts and Saints played damn good defense on their way to giving Manning and Brees their first and only titles. The stats weren't 1976-Steelers-Defense-esque, but both D's were deadly at takeaways, especially when absolutely needed. Yet Roethlisberger has two Super Bowl rings, more than any other quarterback above him on the Top 100 list except for he whom I won't name twice in one article. So the NFL Network is trying to say that they'd rather put Philip Rivers under center than Roethlisberger, which makes no sense since Rivers has no Rings nor has he even made it to an AFC championship game. NFL, you're trying to say that you'd rather have Rivers, who has never been clutch in the big games, to lead you to victory in the fourth quarter? A QB whose battle cry is less "Cowboy Up!" and more "Reverse Cowgirl"? You'd rather have Drew Brees, who couldn't keep the ball out of the opposition's hands last year (22 INTs)? He surrendered more balls than the Village People and Queen put together. You'd rather have Michael Vick, who has never even won a Super Bowl? I won't say anything further about Vick, though. I've dogged him enough. It can't be right, but there is the Top 100 list, telling us that it's so. Ridiculous.
    Roethlisberger has a patch-work offensive line outside of Maurkice Pouncey, yet he finds a way to evade defenders, throw passes from every body angle possible and make every throw imaginable. The bottom line with Roethlisberger is that he always finds a way. So, yeah, that beautiful and intelligent creature I mentioned at the beginning of the article was right, Ben not only got robbed, but he got disrespected too.