Pittsburgh ? Ben Roethlisberger knew he wouldn’t raise Super Bowl trophies every season, and that winning 27 of his first 31 starts set a pace that would be impossible for any NFL quarterback to match.

What he didn’t expect was a mess of a season like this.

After his first two years with the Pittsburgh Steelers went like those of no other young quarterback in NFL history, with a Super Bowl victory and two AFC championship game appearances, Roethlisberger’s third season couldn’t have gone much worse. And he knows it.

Starting with his near-fatal motorcycle accident in June and continuing with an appendicitis attack the first week of the season and a subsequent concussion, it seemed everything went wrong.

All that medical misfortune doesn’t totally explain away a significant dropoff in his play that helped doom the Steelers (7-8) to missing the playoffs a season after they won their first Super Bowl in 26 years.

“It was tough, frustrating,” Roethlisberger said. “At least you know it will be awfully hard for next year to be any worse. We’re going to get better.”

How could it not get better?

Numbers don’t always tell the story of a season, but they illustrate the significant falloff in Roethlisberger’s play.

Roethlisberger won all 13 of his regular-season starts in 2004 – no other rookie had won more than six in a row – before becoming the youngest quarterback, at age 23, to win a Super Bowl last season. This season, he never found a groove until the Steelers were 2-6 and were all but out of postseason contention; his eight losses are double the total of his first two seasons combined.

While he is eighth in the NFL with 3,233 yards passing, much of his production has come in losses in which he threw more than he wanted. His 22 interceptions are six more than any other AFC quarterback who has played most of the season, and are the most by a Steelers quarterback since Terry Bradshaw also had 22 in 1980. Eighteen of the 22 came in losses.

After throwing only nine interceptions last season, he had seven before he threw his first touchdown pass. He also had five games in which his completion percentage was barely above, or slightly below, .500.

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (7) is sacked by Baltimore safety Dawan Landry.

There isn’t a single reason to explain Roethlisberger’s slump. The injuries caused him to miss only one game – the Sept. 7 opener against Miami. And there weren’t major personnel changes, other than the absence of former starting wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, who signed with the Redskins.

Randle El was a game-breaking threat as a multidimensional player, but had only one regular-season touchdown catch last year.

Still, Roethlisberger and his receivers, including veterans Hines Ward and Cedrick Wilson, often seemed out of sync. It didn’t help that two of the top four receivers, rookie Santonio Holmes and second-year receiver Nate Washington, had never caught a regular-season pass until this season.

“I told some of the receivers, and some of the other guys, that we need to get better,” Roethlisberger said. “We know that. We feel we’ve made big steps with the young guys that we have, and we’ll get better this offseason.”

Holmes has had an average rookie season, with 45 catches and one touchdown. He did play well in a 31-7 loss Sunday to Baltimore, making five catches for 90 yards.

It’s obvious the Steelers – and their quarterback – need some help.

“We need some players, and I think we’ll be able to get some,” team chairman Dan Rooney said.

Without all the distractions of their most recent offseason – which began five weeks later than this one will – Roethlisberger is convinced the Steelers will return much improved next season.

“You want to get out there and make the playoffs and make a run at it,” Roethlisberger said. “We felt that we were playing our best football the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out … but we’re going to come back better.”