Ben Roethlisberger: I should have spiked ball on Steelers' last-minute interception
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said in a radio interview Tuesday that he wishes he had spiked the ball in the closing moments of Sunday's loss to the New England Patriots.
In a frenetic moment in the final minute of the fourth quarter, as the Steelers trailed 27-24 in the red zone with no timeouts, Roethlisberger lined up the offense as though he was going to stop the clock. Instead, he motioned to Eli Rogers to run a quick route and his pass was deflected and intercepted, effectively ending the game.
"In that moment as I’m thinking in my head, 'Do I spike it? Do I not?'" Roethlisberger said on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh on Tuesday morning. "I probably wish I would have listened to my gut now obviously in hindsight. I should have listened to that instead of listening to running a play and I just tried to make a play to Eli.
"I don’t regret it, I just wish I would had made a better throw. I’ll take the blame for the interception at the end of the game, because my thought was clock it."
After the game, Roethlisberger said that he was told by offensive coordinator Todd Haley not to spike the ball despite his instinct to do so.
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Roethlisberger noted that the offensive line did not have a specified protection on the play, so he knew he didn't have much time to get rid of the ball. He also said he wished that the Steelers would have called two plays instead of the one preceding the frenetic sequence, a 3-yard gain to Darrius Heyward-Bey, to account for the possibility that they would complete a pass and not get out of bounds.
If Roethlisberger would have spiked the ball, the Steelers would've faced fourth down with less than 10 seconds. Tomlin said Tuesday he "probably" would have elected for a game-tying field goal, but Roethlisberger wasn't entirely convinced that was the case.
"I think coach Tomlin is almost crazy enough to go for it and win it," Roethlisberger said in the radio interview. "I know that was my thought in clocking it, was giving ourselves at least the time to consider those options."
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
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