Pittsburgh ? Ben Roethlisberger still hasn’t lost an NFL game or played an entire NFL season, yet he’s closing in on a feat only one other quarterback in Pittsburgh Steelers history has accomplished.

OK, so it’s not the four Super Bowl rings won by Terry Bradshaw. That one may have to wait awhile.

Roethlisberger will match Bradshaw’s longest regular-season winning streak, the 11-game run in 1975, if the Steelers (11-1) beat the New York Jets (9-3) on Sunday in Pittsburgh.

That 1975 streak, the longest single-season run in the franchise’s 72-season history, was a prelude to the Steelers’ victory in the Super Bowl a month later. No doubt Roethlisberger hopes there is some symmetry there.

That Roethlisberger could match Bradshaw’s feat in only his 11th NFL game defies logic. But a Steelers team that was only 6-10 a season ago has been defying it nearly all season.

“We’ve got mostly the same guys (as last year), it’s Ben that has made a big difference,” linebacker Joey Porter said. “Everybody else has been here. Duce (Staley) and Ben are the biggest two additions we had. Nobody knew he could play at this level this early.”

Roethlisberger has gone into and emerged from his first NFL minislump without losing. After a three-game stretch in which he didn’t throw for more than 138 yards — less than a half’s worth of work for Peyton Manning — he came back to lead a 17-16 comeback victory in Jacksonville on Sunday night.

That Roethlisberger drove the Steelers from their own 25 to the Jaguars’ 20 in only a minute-and-a-half for Jeff Reed’s winning 37-yard field goal hardly surprised his teammates, even if it is the first such decisive drive he has led.

“He’s playing lights out,” running back Jerome Bettis said. “The key is we’re not trying to do too much. If we can keep the game close and give him a chance to go out there and make some plays, then we’re not asking him to do too much. If we’re asking him to throw 40 times, that’s a pretty difficult position to put a young quarterback in.”

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, left, looks for a receiver against Jacksonville. Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a 17-16 comeback victory Sunday in Jacksonville, Fla.

To Bettis, Roethlisberger’s temperament is perfect not only for this team, but also for this season. It may explain why Roethlisberger has the most consecutive victories at the start of a career and the most victories in a season by any rookie QB in NFL history.

“He’s got a confident, assertive attitude,” Bettis said. “He feels he can get it done, and that’s what you need to have when you’re in a situation where you’re the leader of veteran players.”

Roethlisberger may be on the verge of setting some other Pittsburgh sports records, too — for fastest ascension to fame.

Pittsburgh-area stores have ordered nearly 100,000 T-shirts bearing his likeness and facsimile autograph and a picture of that other famous Big Ben — the one in London. His jersey is among the NFL’s hottest sellers and recently outsold Manning’s nationally for a one-week period.

He also is a finalist for the Pittsburgh Dapper Dan Club Sportsman of the Year award, one that previous winner Bill Cowher likely would have won again in most years.

Of course, this isn’t like most years.

The number of restaurants selling Roethlisberger sandwiches or a variation thereof also grows each week, to the point they are beginning to rival another Pittsburgh culinary creation — the Big Mac — in popularity. Roethlisberger himself ate one this week.

Still, Roethlisberger has seemed oblivious to the attention most of the time, repeating almost weekly that is he not looking any further ahead than that week’s game.

Asked if he began coming back to Earth during that three-game stretch in which his passing numbers were below average, he said:

“I’ve always been on Earth,” he said. “I’ve never left Earth. This team is a good team. We just want to keep plugging away and win football games.”