Steelers' Roethlisberger had Ravens by nose

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday returns to the stadium where last season he tossed a game-winning touchdown pass after sustaining a broken nose.

What stands out to Roethlisberger about the hit by Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata that left him bloodied but unbowed last December is what transpired after the Steelers' first possession.

Nobody, Roethlisberger said with a laugh, would tell him how bad his nose looked. Or that he had broke it.

Team doctors said his nose was "a little crooked," Roethlisberger recalled.

Roethlisberger asked for a mirror, but his request, like one of 16 passes he threw on that frigid night in Baltimore, fell incomplete.

"They're like 'No, it might be (broken). We just can't tell,' " Roethlisberger said of the team doctors. "Guys were looking at me kind of funny. I was like, 'All right, fine, let's stop the bleeding. Let's go play.' "

Tony Yates, one of the Steelers' doctors, popped the nose back into place. Cotton swabs helped stop the bleeding, and Roethlisberger didn't miss a snap with first place in the AFC North on the line.

"It definitely hurt like crazy," Roethlisberger said. "Everybody was looking at me, but nobody would say anything, and I remember going in at halftime and (my nose) was plastered to the side of my face.

"I went to the doctors (laughing), and I was like, 'Really• You didn't know if it was broken?' They said, 'We didn't want to freak you out.' I'm like, 'Freak me out• You guys know better than that.' "

Roethlisberger completed 22 of 38 passes for 253 yards in the Steelers' 13-10 win. Two plays before throwing a 9-yard touchdown pass on third down with less than three minutes left, Roethlisberger turned in one of his most improbable escapes ever.

It came when he wriggled free of Terrell Suggs' grasp and got away from the Pro Bowl outside linebacker long enough to fling the ball forward for an incomplete pass.

His touchdown pass to running back Isaac Redman might not have happened without that play.

And Roethlisberger would have never tormented the Ravens with more fourth-quarter heroics had the hit that later cost Ngata $15,000 knocked him out of the game.

"You could tell something was going on," right guard Ramon Foster said after Roethlisberger got hit in the face. "Ben, the tough guy that he is, acted like nothing was wrong with him."

When asked if he ever considered coming out of the game, Roethlisberger said, "Are you kidding me• Unless they take me out on a stretcher, which has happened before, I don't ever want to come out of a game, especially a game we had to win. If my guys are out there, I want to be out there with them. That's the kind of leadership I try and exemplify."