Roethlisberger.

Last year at this time...

The Patriots counted on Roethlisberger coming down with "happy feet" once they racheted up the pressure in the Pittsburgh backfield, and he did not disappoint. Coaxed into throwing into heavy traffic on his first pass of the game, Roethlisberger got picked off and that wasn't the only time, either.

"It was obvious that we had lost the game, and he was boo-hooing, and I was boo-hooing," teammate Jerome Bettis recalled, "and he turned to me and said, 'Come back next year, I will get you to the Super Bowl. Give me one more year.'

"And he's done it," Pittsburgh's iconic running back said.

And now?

Last season, when Roethlisberger was rushed into the starting job after Tommy Maddox went down in the second game, Steelers guard Alan Faneca responded this way: "Do you want to go work with some little young kid who's just out of college?"

On Sunday, someone asked whether Roethlisberger was actually 23.

"If that's what the birth certificate says, that's what he is," Faneca replied. "But he's playing older than that ... he's playing like he's been in the NFL a lot longer than two years."

And leading the same way.

"Believe me, we know he's still the youngest guy in the huddle," Pittsburgh running back Willie Parker said, "but when he says, 'Shut up,' we shut up. He's earned that respect this time around." (Thanks to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for the heads up.)