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Ben Roethlisberger set to break Terry Bradshaw's career passing yards mark

In his ninth season, Ben Roethlisberger is staring down Terry Bradshaw's 29-year-old franchise record 27,989 passing yards. Sitting at 27,690,

Joe Sargent - Getty Images

A milestone game from Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would give him a career milestone. Another one, that is.

A 300-yard passing game would give Roethlisberger 27,990 yards, thus breaking Terry Bradshaw's career yardage mark of 27,989. It's Roethlisberger's ninth season, Bradshaw set the record in 14 years.

(Update: The NFL changed what was initially ruled a touchdown run by Rashard Mendenhall into a pass, crediting Roethlisberger with 13 more yards in Week 5. Roethlisberger now needs 287 passing yards to break Bradshaw's record.)

Given the stark differences between eras, the total yardage is still impressive, even if the time needed to break it is somewhat skewed. For example, Bradshaw threw for a career high 3,724 yards in 1979, with 17 receptions being the mark of the team's listed third wide receiver.

Roethlisberger's third wide receiver, Emmanuel Sanders, has 13 catches through four games.

What Roethlisberger is able to accomplish in the amped up receivers era of the NFL is more or less a standalone statistic; it's impossible to compare offensive statistics - especially passing stats - from the Steel Curtain Era in Pittsburgh to today. It's tempting, though.

Both are highly accomplished quarterbacks. In fact, the one thing they have in common is being recognized more as winners on great teams than highly skilled individual quarterbacks. Bradshaw has 107 career regular season wins. Roethlisberger sits at 82. While Bradshaw has Roethlisberger at three Pro Bowl appearances - and one All Pro nod - to Roethlisberger's two, that seems like something that will eventually fall in Roethlisberger's favor.

With two consecutive games on the road, it seems most Steelers fans would rather him break the mark away from Heinz Field, given that something would have gone wrong if he wasn't able to get 300 yards passing over the team's next two games. The Steelers are at Tennessee Thursday, and at Cincinnati on Sunday Night Football in Week 7.

Being the kind of player he is, though, he's likely to dust off talk about such a record, and focus on the win.

If there's any record of Bradshaw's he wants to break, it's his "most Super Bowl wins in team history" mark.