Sports Illustrated: Roethlisberger played Super Bowl with broken ribs

2/9/2009

Apparently, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had a reason to have X-rays taken of his ribs the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIII: They were broken.

"Fractured ribs,'' the Findlay native told Peter King of Sports Illustrated. "Luckily, in the game, I didn't take any big hits to make 'em hurt. But I knew all along there was something wrong. There wouldn't have been anything they could have done about fractured ribs anyway. It was just suck it up and play.''

That kind of makes his Super Bowl statistics - 21 of 30, 256 yards passing and the game-winning TD throw - a little more impressive.