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It's become a crown among all athletes to have won a championship, with none shining more brightly by the ones who made the key plays to win that title.
That's Ben Roethlisberger. He led a championship-winning drive in Super Bowl XLIII to defeat the Arizona Cardinals. The throw he made on Santonio Holmes' touchdown catch was very likely a 1-in-100 throw; 99 other times, any quarterback and receiver combination making that throw from that angle to that spot, they're happy with an incompletion. It's intercepted 51 times and falls incomplete 48 times.
Santonio caught the one out of 100.
That said, Roethlisberger, one of three NFL quarterbacks with more than one Super Bowl ring, was fifth in an ESPN poll surveying 320 NFL players (10 from each team) of which quarterback they'd want leading their team into a final drive in the Super Bowl.
Naturally (but curiously) Patriots QB Tom Brady finished first with 128 votes, and Denver's Peyton Manning finished second with 86. Aaron Rodgers (32 votes) and Drew Brees (21) finished third and fourth, respectively. Roethlisberger had 20 votes, five of which came from the 10 Steelers polled.
Perhaps the fact two players voted for Raiders quarterback Matt McGloin (ESPN's Paul Gutierrez confirmed the two votes came from Oakland's locker room...or if one of them was from McGloin himself) sheds a bit of fair skepticism on the method in which this was drawn, but maybe only slightly more than the fact Ravens QB Joe Flacco received a vote (ESPN's Jamison Hensley did not confirm if that vote came from the Ravens locker room or from Flacco himself).
If nothing else, the elite of the division quarterbacks still rests in Pittsburgh.
