Jan 18, 2005 3 min read

PITTSBURGH(AP) – Alan Faneca must be trying to motivate Ben Roethlisberger again. Faneca said the Pittsburgh Steelers badly need Roethlisberger to upgrade his play for Sunday’s AFC Championship game against New England, after the rookie quarterback’s errors nearly led to a playoff loss to the Jets.

“He’s going to have to pick his game up,” Faneca said Monday. “We’re all going to have to pick our game up, and it’s going to take our best effort of the season to win this week.”

Roethlisberger, the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, threw two interceptions – one for a touchdown and another creating Doug Brien’s potential game-winning field goal try – and got nothing going as the Jets scored 17 consecutive points in the second and third quarters.

The Steelers came back to win 20-17 in overtime Saturday, but only after Brien missed two field goal tries in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter.

“He was off a little bit, but we were all off a little bit as an offense,” Faneca said.

Faneca wasn’t singling out the rookie, but said that kind of quarterback play won’t be good enough – not after the Super Bowl champion Patriots held NFL MVP Peyton Manning’s high-output Colts offense to a field goal in a 20-3 win Sunday.

Still, Faneca’s motivating words were reminiscent of those the day after former starting quarterback Tommy Maddox injured an elbow Sept. 19 in Baltimore, making Roethlisberger the starter by default.

Then, Faneca said he wasn’t overly excited about going into a game with “some little young kid who’s just out of college” rather than a veteran like Maddox. Roethlisberger went on to lead the Steelers to a 13-3 victory in Miami.

If Roethlisberger picked up a Sunday newspaper, and he insists he doesn’t, he would have read fan comments calling for Tommy Maddox to replace him despite an unequaled 14-0 record as a starter.

“He had a rough game, people were really down on him and said he played bad, but he’s a young quarterback and he has a lot in his face right now,” linebacker James Farrior said. “But he’s such a good player, he knows how to handle every situation like he’s done it all year, and he’s sure do the same this week.”

Especially since the Patriots will likely try to be in the rookie’s face all night, something they didn’t do in their 34-20 loss in Pittsburgh on Oct. 31.