Big Ben presents different challenge to Jets

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. - They vanquished Peyton Manning. They eliminated Tom Brady. Now, for the Jets' defense, it's on to Ben Roethlisberger.

"Mission: Impossible III," defensive back Drew Coleman said Monday. "We know we've got our work cut out for us."

The Jets are a victory away from the Super Bowl, which Roethlisberger has won twice for the six-time champion Steelers. The defensive unit that frustrated and befuddled Manning and Brady the last two weekends is gearing up for Big Ben and an offense that will have tight end Heath Miller.

Miller missed the Jets' 22-17 win in Pittsburgh on Dec. 19 because of a concussion. Roethlisberger led a drive that could have won it in the final seconds but threw incompletions on the final two plays from the Jets' 9 to backup tight end Matt Spaeth, who is not the pass-catching threat Miller is.

The Jets sacked Roethlisberger three times, two by the 5-9 Coleman for a net loss of 25 yards in the final nine minutes. He stripped the ball both times, though the Steelers recovered the fumbles. At 180 pounds, Coleman definitely didn't have a chance to take down the 6-5, 241-pound Roethlisberger the way he did Brady on a corner blitz Sunday.

"I don't think he could have gotten Ben down, so he was smart, he went for the ball," Rex Ryan said of Coleman. "You get a guy coming free on [Roethlisberger] and he'll just go, 'OK, get out of here,' and toss him aside."

That is the element Roethlisberger brings: the ability to extend plays and shake off pass rushers to make something out of nothing. The Jets' defense needed every X and O of its game plan and every ounce of physicality and discipline to defeat Manning's Colts and Brady's Patriots. On Sunday, with a trip to Cowboys Stadium on the line, it will need that and a bit of instinct, too.

"He doesn't stand in there and read defenses the way Peyton and Brady do, but what he does better is just scramble around, throw from angles, throw on the run," Dwight Lowery said.

"If you're in man-to-man, it's very tough to contain that. If you play zone, you can kind of keep things in front of you. But in man, it's tough."

The Jets' secondary had the back end of the field locked down tight against the Patriots. They blitzed on only 16 of 78 plays, choosing to clog the middle of the field to prevent Brady from finding his tight ends down the seams.

With Roethlisberger and his array of weapons - Miller and three very different types of receivers in Hines Ward, Mike Wallace and rookie Emmanuel Sanders, plus emerging rookie Antonio Brown - the secondary will have to do the same, but in a different scheme.

"We can't [run the same defense]. They've seen it," Lowery said. "You don't want to show them stuff they've seen before."