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Ben Roethlisberger: 'We're Gonna Be Prepared For The Very Best New England Patriots'

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PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan) - It's officially Patriots week for the Steelers and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger joined us for The #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show.

Before getting into that though, Ben provided us with the latest update on teammate Ryan Shazier who remains in the hospital following his hit in the Bengals game and the positive outlook he has taken that is rubbing off on his teammates.

"We went over yesterday and spent some time with him and everything. It's always so uplifting to go see him and give him a hug and see that smile. I enjoyed sitting in his room last night and talking about the game, getting his perspective on the game and what he saw."

Ben also shared with us about his visit with Shazier last week and why Mike Tomlin asked him to get up in front of his teammates and talk about that.

"Coach asked me if I'd share with the team what it felt like to me...so I got up in front of the team on Friday morning and spoke about how uplifting it was to see him, to walk into that room, to see the smile on his face, for him to put his arms up and give me a hug and how it really brought me back up. I was down last week, I was down last week, I think most of us were...I don't know the exact number of guys that have gone, but I'm sure most of the team if not all the team has gone and everybody that I've talked to has said the exact same thing to me."

Turning his attention to the Patriots game, Ben first looked back at their loss to the Dolphins on Monday night and how that will motivate them not to stack back-to-back losses.

" I'm sure they'll give a lot of credit to the Dolphins...We're gonna be prepared for the very best New England Patriots that we can face coming in here on Sunday."

The Patriots record after a loss since 2003 is 36-4.

Given that the Patriots have made quite a name for themselves by making very good players look bad, Ben talked about Bill Belichick and what he may throw at him this time.

"He is one of the greatest coaches of all-time, I think we can all agree on that in, in terms of scheming, out-coaching, thinking, game planning, whatever it may be.  They're gonna have, whether it's a new wrinkle, something that we've seen maybe in the past but it's been a long time, whatever it is, there's gonna be some adjustments that are gonna have to be made before the game, during the game because they are very good at preparation and getting you to do things that aren't maybe typically you."

Ben went on to say he's sure the Patriots will try to make them one-dimensional, they just won't know which dimension that is.

One guy who will be pivotal to their success this week is wide receiver Antonio Brown who all of a sudden is getting mentioned in MVP talk despite a receiver having never won the award.

You can count Ben amongst his supporters when it comes to winning the award.

"Look at his numbers, I think it would be awesome, especially being my teammate to be the first wide receiver to get it, that would be really stinking cool to know that I helped contribute to it too."

The guy who is likely the leading candidate for that award right now will be across the field from Ben this week in Tom Brady and Roethlisberger was asked if he looks at these games as a measuring stick for him.

"I'm leading an offense and he's leading an offense so yeah, of course I want my offense to outperform his offense but really at the end of the day, it's just about winning.  I'm sure he'll tell you the same thing, if I have the worst game ever and horrible stats and we win the game, you know me well enough that that's all that's really gonna matter is that at the end of the day, it's not about how many yards you put up, how many points, I mean it is about points obviously if you score more than them, but really its about just finding a way to win the football game.

Click the audio link at the top of the post to hear more from Ben on the Patriots, whether or not Martavis Bryant is ready for this big of a stage after lackluster performances this year and if he ever got that jersey from Brady after a game like he told us he wanted.

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The #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show is heard exclusively every Tuesday at 11 am during the Steelers season on The Cook and Poni Show on Sportsradio 93-7 The Fan.

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