Heading into Super Bowl XLV, what is the major story? Is it Aaron Rodgers looking to make his own legacy and get out of the Favre shadow? Maybe the Packers themselves making a return to "America's Game" for the first time since 1998? Can the Steelers win their third Lombardi Trophy in six years?
In my opinion, this game is about the season-long redemption of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, but maybe even more important, will he be able to refrain from off-field controversies after the Super Bowl.
At Super Bowl XL, in February of 2006, Roethlisberger won his first Super Bowl trophy. Four months later, he found himself in the hospital following a motorcycle accident. This accident was only a year after Kellen Winslow's crash, and the league was concerned about these kinds of things and warned their players that they could be breaching their contractual agreements. Three years later, "Big Ben" won his second Super Bowl. Five months following that, he was accused of sexual assault by a hotel worker in Lake Tahoe. Not a year later, Roethlisberger found himself in a similar situation, when he was accused of the same thing by a 20-year-old college student. As a result of all these, he was suspended for the first four games of this season.
Regardless if you or I think the suspension is fair, or even our opinions on the various charges he's faced, Ben is putting himself into very bad situations. This guy has the opportunity to be in the company of Terry Bradshaw, Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, Steve Young and Tom Brady as quarterbacks with three or more Super Bowl trophies.
The thing about Roethlisberger, too, is that he is still in the prime of his career. The type of quarterback he is, being a tough-nosed, somewhat mobile and hard to bring down player, is on par with his team's mentality. He's also only 28 years old. Peyton Manning is 34 and Tom Brady is 33. Ben still has many years to play, and he could conceivably win three or four more trophies the way his career is going, and also the way the Steelers keep making Super Bowls.
However, if Ben Roethliberger doesn't keep his nose clean and keep himself out of these bad situations, these will be the things that people will ultimately remember him by. Right now, Roethlisberger is more comparable to Favre than is Rodgers, because this is a wait-and-see situation with both of them.
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