Everyone had by Sunday morning the story of Roethlisberger experiencing exercise-induced headaches during practice on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and of the independent neurologist declining to clear Roethlisberger to play -- even though he was still listed as the emergency quarterback.
As it turns out, the story that had been pushed by the team wasn't the entire truth.
We're told that the decision to go with Dennis Dixon instead of Roethlisberger came early in the week, and that it came directly from coach Mike Tomlin. It wasn't a benching in the classic sense; as we hear it, Tomlin feared that Roethlisberger -- who in Tomlin's estimation holds the ball way too long -- would take another blow to the head against a tenacious Ravens defense, which surely would have treated that white seven in the yellow stripe of Ben's helmet like the red dot in the middle of a dart board.
So the call was made to get Dixon ready. Though Roethlisberger might have indeed been suffering from post-practice headaches, the notion that a neurologist didn't clear Roethlisberger to play was cover for a coaching decision to give him a week off.
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