Twelve years ago this Monday, Ben Roethlisberger had the most productive passing afternoon of his career. On Sunday, October 26, 2014, he completed 40 of 49 throws for 522 yards and six touchdowns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Indianapolis Colts 51-34 at Heinz Field.
The Colts arrived with five straight wins and a young quarterback, Andrew Luck, who had been piling up yardage all autumn. Roethlisberger answered him throw for throw and then some. Indianapolis did not sack him once.
A first half for the record books
Adam Vinatieri gave the Colts a 3-0 lead with a 31-yard field goal, and that was the last time Indianapolis was in front. Roethlisberger hit Markus Wheaton for an 18-yard score in the first quarter, then opened the second with a 5-yard touchdown to rookie Martavis Bryant. Less than a minute later, cornerback William Gay intercepted Luck and ran it back 33 yards for a touchdown, and it was 21-3.
Antonio Brown then caught two touchdowns in a span of about three and a half minutes, from 8 and 47 yards, and Pittsburgh led 35-10. Luck found Dwayne Allen and T.Y. Hilton for scores, and Vinatieri added a 23-yard kick as time ran out in the half. By the break Roethlisberger already had 320 yards and four touchdown passes, the most yards he had ever thrown in a single half, and the Steelers led 35-20.
The Colts come back, the Steelers pull away
Bryant’s second touchdown, from 2 yards, made it 42-20 midway through the third quarter. Indianapolis then scored twice inside 70 seconds: a 12-yard run by Ahmad Bradshaw and a 31-yard catch by Donte Moncrief cut the gap to 42-34.
The game turned on a stumble. Early in the fourth quarter Luck tripped in his own end zone and threw the ball away as he went down. Officials called intentional grounding, and a grounding foul committed in the end zone is a safety. Pittsburgh led 44-34, got the ball back on the free kick and used 12 plays and 7 minutes 20 seconds to score again, Roethlisberger finding tight end Heath Miller from 11 yards with 5:14 left. Indianapolis did not threaten after that.
“He’s unbelievably accurate,” Colts coach Chuck Pagano said afterward.
The numbers that stood
- Ben Roethlisberger: 40 of 49, 522 yards, 6 touchdowns, no interceptions.
- Antonio Brown: 10 catches, 133 yards, 2 touchdowns.
- Heath Miller: 7 catches, 112 yards, 1 touchdown.
- Andrew Luck: 26 of 45, 400 yards, 3 touchdowns, 2 interceptions.
- T.Y. Hilton: 6 catches, 155 yards, 1 touchdown.
The 522 yards and the six touchdown passes both set Steelers franchise records, as did the 40 completions. The yardage was the fourth-highest single-game total in league history at the time, and it made Roethlisberger the first quarterback ever to pass for 500 yards in two different games. His earlier high, 503 yards, had come in 2009. The afternoon was also his 100th win in his 150th start, a pace matched at that point only by Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw. Pittsburgh, wearing its striped 1934 throwback uniforms, moved to 5-3.
What came next
Roethlisberger did it again a week later. On Sunday, November 2, 2014, he threw six more touchdown passes in a 43-23 win over the Baltimore Ravens. His 12 touchdown passes across two games broke the league record of 11, which Tom Flores had set in 1963 and Tom Brady had matched in 2007. Pittsburgh went on to win the AFC North at 11-5, and Roethlisberger finished the season tied with Drew Brees for the league lead with 4,952 passing yards.
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