Pittsburgh again look to man of steel Ben
To make matters worse for the AFC champions and Super Bowl runners-up, key running back Rashard Mendenhall will miss the play-offs due to a knee injury.
The one thing working in their favour is that they’ll be visiting the struggling Denver Broncos (tomorrow, 9.30pm, all times Irish) who crept out of the AFC West with an 8-8 record behind the erratic performances of QB Tim Tebow.
However, Roethlisberger, who trained on Thursday but is struggling with an ankle sprain, is refusing to underestimate Tebow after he set the league alight with a string of battling comebacks before losing steam at the end of the regular season.
“I think he’s a winner,” said Roethlisberger. “I think he finds ways to get it done. People say he can’t throw the ball, he can’t do this. He finds a way to win.”
The other AFC wild card game pits AFC South champions Houston Texans against sixth seeds Cincinnati Bengals at the Reliant Stadium in Texas (tonight, 9.30pm).
The last time these two met, Houston, whose injury-ravaged season deprived them of a pair of quarterbacks, beat the Bengals in mid-December to clinch a first AFC South title as well as a first play-off appearance in their nine-season history.
“We were very, very lucky [to defeat the Bengals],” coach Gary Kubiak admitted earlier this week. “We know we won’t get away with that type of effort this weekend.”
If Cincinnati do manage to win, they will play at top seeds New England next weekend in the divisional round while a Houston victory would set up a trip to second-seeded Baltimore.
In the much more competitive NFC, the most anticipated game of the weekend will see the attacking powerhouses of the New Orleans Saints and the Detroit Lions face off at the Superdome (tonight, 1am).
The New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl two years ago and although the Green Bay Packers are still slight favourites, no one will be surprised if Drew Brees leads his side all the way again.
The 13 victories they clinched to win the NFC South were achieved in historic fashion, with Brees smashing a handful of passing records, setting the new single-season high water mark of 5,476 passing yards, knocking Dan Marino off the top after 27 years.
As third seeds, the Saints will enjoy home advantage where they are unbeaten all season and where they also recorded a 31-17 win over Detroit a month ago.
“A lot has happened over the last four weeks,” Brees said. “I feel we’re playing better football than we were then and they’re playing better football.”
There won’t be a lot of defence on show and the visitors will look to quarterback Matthew Stafford and his top wide receiver Calvin Johnson to try and match their hosts touchdown for touchdown.
A Saints win would set up a mouth-watering clash with the San Francisco 49ers while Detroit would have to visit Green Bay for the second time in the space of a fortnight as scant reward for what would be a surprise win.
The remaining game on the schedule is tomorrow’s clash between the New York Giants and the Atlanta Falcons at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey (6pm).
This will be the first post-season meeting of the two sides, with Eli Manning’s Giants buoyed by last Sunday’s dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys.
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