Brady vs. Big Ben: Disappointing Rivalry Can Get New Life in AFC Title Game

Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger first met under the most storied of circumstances. 

It was Halloween 2004. Brady's Patriots were defending Super Bowl champions on a historic 21-game winning streak. Roethlisberger was a hot-shot rookie with a 4-0 record since taking over as the Steelers' starter.

Everyone expected Bill Belichick's defense to put yet another young gunslinger in his place while Brady efficiently led the Patriots to victory. Instead, Roethlisberger threw a pair of touchdowns, and the Steelers defense harassed Brady into multiple turnovers, sparking a 34-20 Steelers upset.

The Patriots were mortal. Ben Roethlisberger had arrived.

New England would exact Patriots-style revenge in the playoffs, halting a 15-game Steelers winning streak and handing Roethlisberger the first defeat of his NFL career in the AFC Championship Game. Brady threw two touchdowns in the 41-27 win. Roethlisberger threw three interceptions, including a pick-six.

Two games, two winning streaks halted and two great franchises with exciting young quarterbacks peaking at the same time.

So began Tom Brady versus Ben Roethlisberger, the Rivalry That Never Quite Happened. Brady has been transcendent, Roethlisberger excellent and the Patriots and Steelers perennial contenders. Yet somehow, Brady v. Roethlisberger never really became a thing.

Sunday's AFC Championship Game has a chance to change that. We may finally see a definitive Brady-Roethlisberger showdown.

George Gojkovich/Getty Images

Quarterback rivalry games provide a great filter for interpreting NFL history. The Brady-Peyton Manning rivalry began as an annual David-versus-Goliath tale of Brady smiting the more ballyhooed Manning. Then it became a clash of titans. Then it was Manning's quest for late-career closure. Brady won the most championships, but Manning earned his share of triumphs, and the constant battles enriched both of their legacies.

Brady and Roethlisberger lack that sort of relationship. Sunday is their best chance to finally establish one.

The AFC has been a three-quarterback conference since Roethlisberger entered the league in 2004. Either Brady, Roethlisberger or Manning has represented the AFC in the Super Bowl 12 times in the last 13 years, with the Ravens muscling Joe Flacco into the picture in 2012. Brady and Roethlisberger have combined for six Super Bowl victories and nine Super Bowl appearances in this young century.

Yet Sunday's game will be only Brady-Roethlisberger IX, a low Roman numeral for a pair of quarterbacks with such distinguished pedigrees. Brady leads the series 6-2, but Brady leads all series against everyone. What's remarkable is not that Brady usually beats Roethlisberger, but that they so rarely face off with so much at stake.

Brady and Roethlisberger met for the third time in September 2005, just eight months after Roethlisberger's rookie playoff comeuppance. Roethlisberger threw two touchdowns, Brady zero, but the Patriots won 23-20.

The Steelers would grind their way to a Super Bowl victory as a wild-card team in 2005. The Patriots fell to Mike Shanahan's Broncos in the playoffs. With that, the teams and quarterbacks began traveling down separate playoff tracks that somehow never met.

Jim Rogash/Getty Images

Brady-Roethlisberger IV took place in December 2007. Brady's Patriots, you may recall, were in the midst of a pretty famous winning streak that ended in the Super Bowl. The Steelers were no match for them. Brady threw four touchdowns in a 34-13 win.

The Steelers' loss began a slump that ensured there would be no rematch in that season's playoffs. While the Patriots cruised toward their Super Bowl date, the Steelers got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Jaguars, of all teams.

Roethlisberger threw a pair of touchdowns in a 33-10 regular-season win over the Patriots in 2008, then went on to lead the Steelers to the Super Bowl. Only one thing was missing: Tom Brady. That was the year Brady tore his ACL. Beating Matt Cassel is not the stuff of a legendary rivalry.

Season	Winner	Score	Brady-Ben rtg
2004	Pitt.	34-20	72.9-126.4
2004*	NE	41-27	130.5-78.1
2005	NE	23-20	92.7-93.7
2007	NE	34-13	125.2-86.3
2010	NE	39-26	117.4-97.9
2011	Pitt.	25-17	101.8-97.5
2013	NE	55-31	151.8-95.8
2015	NE	28-21	143.7-95.4

Brady-Roethlisberger V in 2010 followed the most familiar formula for their meetings. Brady spurred the Patriots to a commanding lead. Roethlisberger played well enough to keep the Patriots in sight but never mounted a serious comeback. Each threw three touchdowns in a 39-26 Patriots victory.

A playoff rematch in 2010 would have been memorable. Leave it to Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez to spoil everyone's fun by upsetting the Patriots in the divisional round. The Steelers dispatched the Jets (barely) in the championship game before losing to the Packers in the Super Bowl.

Brady-Roethlisberger VI in 2011 was a defensive showdown. Brady was sacked three times, once for a safety. Roethlisberger endured five sacks but threw two touchdown passes in a 25-17 victory.

Once again, an unlikely quarterback got in the way of a playoff rematch. Who can forget Tim Tebow throwing the one truly great pass of his NFL career to Demaryius Thomas to beat the Steelers in overtime? Thanks to Tebowmania, Brady bypassed Roethlisberger for another Super Bowl showdown with the Manning family.

Speaking of the Mannings, Peyton elbowed Brady and Roethlisberger aside in last year's AFC playoffs—with a major assist from the Broncos defense—so he could have one more Super Bowl curtain call.

Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

Brady-Roethlisberger VII and VIII were much like the 2010 meeting. The Patriots stomped on the accelerator for early leads. Roethlisberger made his fantasy owners happy with a failed comeback attempt. Neither game was one for the vault.

Given the nature of this almost-rivalry, it's a miracle that this year Matt Moore or Brock Osweiler didn't do what Tebow, Sanchez and the Jaguars did in postseasons past: stand in the way of a last-minute reunion of our heroes like some jealous ex-lover in a romantic comedy.

Circumstances often seem to get in the way of the would-be Brady-Roethlisberger rivalry. A Roethlisberger injury robbed us of a regular-season meeting this year, when Landry Jones put up a fair fight in a 27-16 Patriots win.

History suggests the Steelers don't have much of a chance Sunday. Roethlisberger may have sent Brady a wake-up call in that long-ago first meeting, but Brady and the Patriots haven't slept since. Recent matchups have demonstrated convincingly that Roethlisberger is at best second fiddle to Brady in the AFC.

But if Roethlisberger does not stand a chance against Brady, who does? The AFC's best young quarterbacks are either injured (Derek Carr) or trapped in bumbling organizations (Andrew Luck).

The AFC can deploy wave upon wave of Flacco, Andy Dalton, Alex Smith and Ryan Tannehill at Brady like faceless robot drones attacking a movie superhero. One of them gets lucky every once in a while. But none has ever come close to earning the mantle of rival.

Roethlisberger is the only quarterback in the conference worthy of that title.

Sunday's championship rematch with Brady has been 12 years in the making. Few remember that Roethlisberger played the second half of the 2004 AFC Championship Game with broken toes on his right foot (even as a rookie, Roethlisberger wouldn't leave a game unless a limb was severed). He admitted after that game to having a tired arm and what he called weariness from his first NFL season. Exhaustion, injuries and Belichick's defense—the rookie Roethlisberger faced impossible odds against Brady.

Suddenly, the veteran Roethlisberger's odds for Sunday don't look quite so bad. He's older, wiser and probably healthier, and the Patriots didn't exactly look unstoppable against the Texans this past weekend.

Brady v. Roethlisberger will never be Brady v. Manning. But it deserves to be more than it has been. A pair of Hall of Famers with multiple Super Bowl rings should leave us with lots of unforgettable clashes, not some near misses and regular-season blowouts.

We've waited a long time for the next chapter in the Brady-Roethlisberger saga that started with that pair of streak-stopping efforts back in 2004. Let's hope that on Sunday, we finally get the showdown we deserve.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.