Steelers-Packers Super Bowl (cont.)

Pittsburgh

1. Ben Roethlisberger is the most underrated quarterback in the game today. How many Super Bowls does Big Ben have to win before he joins the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks in the eyes of the public?

Maybe three will do it.

Clearly, Roethlisberger's reputation has taken a hit over the years because of a variety of off-field incidents. But on the field, he's a truly underappreciated performer. For example, we like looking at average per pass attempt as a way to measure quarterbacks.

Here's why: Quarterbacks with high averages per attempt win a lot of games, even if they don't draw oohs and ahhs from fans obsessed with big fantasy-friendly volume numbers. And Big Ben is a perfect example. He's one of just five passers in history who have averaged more than 8.0 YPA in their career (8.04).

In others words, he's historically effective at getting the ball down field. It may not look pretty. His style may be unorthodox. But none of the game's elite quarterbacks -- Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, whoever -- get the ball down the field better than Big Ben.

Oh, by the way, Roethlisberger is No. 8 all time in career passer rating (92.5) -- right behind the prolific Kurt Warner (93.7) and ahead of some guy named Joe Montana (92.3).

The Steelers will win Sunday because Big Ben will make big plays down the field, no matter how unorthodox it may look.

2. It's all about the Defensive Hogs. ColdHardFootballFacts.com ranks each defensive front on what we call the Defensive Hog Index. You should take a look at the indicator, because It has an incredibly high correlation to postseason success.

In fact, teams better on the Defensive Hog Index are 30-11 in postseason play since we introduced it in 2007. Teams with the better defensive front were a perfect 4-0 last week, by the way.

The 2007 Giants topped the DHI and won the Super Bowl. The 2008 Steelers topped the DHI and won the Super Bowl. The 2010 Steelers topped the DHI again this year. And they delivered a Defensive Hog tour de force against Baltimore last week. They pressured Joe Flacco into five sacks and an interception, held the Ravens to a dismal 1.9 YPA on the ground and allowed Baltimore to convert just 5 of 13 attempts on third and fourth downs.

Pittsburgh will win Sunday because it'll beat the New York offense at the point of attack.

3 . Mike Tomlin and Dick LeBeau are the NFL's best 1-2 coaching punch. In true Pittsburgh tradition, the Rooneys in 2007 handed the keys to the organization to a very young man (34 at the time) who had never been a head coach in the NFL.

But Mike Tomlin is proving Pittsburgh prophetic. He's still one of the youngest coaches in all of sports (38), already has one Super Bowl victory under his belt and sports a nifty 4-1 playoff record. This is his third postseason trip in four years at the helm.

One of Tomlin's first decisions was also his smartest: he kept longtime defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, when he could have cleaned house in an effort to put his own stamp on the organization. The Steelers have finished No. 1 or No. 2 in scoring defense in three of Tomlin and LeBeau's four seasons together.

In fact, since the glory days of the Steel Curtain, only the 2001 Steelers (13.3 PPG) surrendered fewer points than Tomlin-LeBeau's Super Bowl champion 2008 Steelers (13.9 PPG allowed) and 2010 Steelers (14.5 PPG).

Rex Ryan is the story du jour in the NFL. But Pittsburgh will win Sunday because it has the best 1-2 coaching tandem in football.

4. The Pittsburgh roster is filled with game-breaking play-makers. The Steelers are not the prettiest team in football. And Pittsburgh fans certainly like it that way. But the Steelers have game-breaking playmakers all over the field -- beyond Roethlisberger and Polamalu.

Safety Ryan Clark produced a pair of huge game-changing big plays in the third quarter of the Ravens game last week, forcing two turnovers that led to Pittsburgh touchdowns.

James Harrison proved his playmaking chops back in the 2008 championship season. He was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year and his 100-yard pick-six against Kurt Warner was the biggest play of Super Bowl XLIII. He brought the heat again on Sunday, sacking Flacco three times.

Receiver Mike Wallace, meanwhile, might be the best "Big Play" receiver in football today. Wallace this year became just the fifth player since the AFL-NFL merger to catch 60 or more passes and average 21.0 yards or more per reception. Meanwhile, unheralded rookie receiver Antonio Brown entered Pittsburgh's playmaking pantheon with his 58-yard reception on 3rd and 19 against Baltimore on Sunday.

These aren't isolated incidents. ColdHardFootballFacts.com tracks each team's Big Play capabilities on what we call, conveniently enough, the Big Play Index. Pittsburgh finished second on the indicator, at +28. The Jets, by the way, were No. 3 at +23. (Of course, New England was No. 1 this year with a bullet (+41) and that advantage didn't help them last week.)

Pittsburgh will win Sunday because it will make more big plays than the Jets.

ColdHardFootballFacts.com is dedicated to cutting-edge analysis and to the "gridiron lifestyle" of beer, food and football. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook. E-mail comments to siwriters@simail.com.