Vintage Ben is a better Ben

outstanding team around him. It wouldn’t hurt, though, if he sparked up during the season’s second half.

You never know when the ol’ point guard might need to score 40 to win a game.

An injury to Le’Veon Bell would force the Steelers to lean more on the pass. So would falling way behind in a playoff game.

I’m not sure I’d bet big on Ben returning to elite form, but there’s a decent chance. Here’s why: He can still make every throw. His consistency issues do not appear to be physical in nature.

He isn’t going to make those insane playground plays much anymore, but that aspect of his game has been slowly fading for years, partly by design. He is 35.

The fluctuations are somewhat baffling, then, and they were on full display in Detroit. On consecutive plays, no less.

On a second-and-9 from the Steelers 3, Ben went full Ernesto Frieri, missing tight end Jesse James by approximately 700 miles. On the very next snap, he threw as beautiful a ball as you’ll see all season — from his end zone — into the eager hands of rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster, who did the rest in accounting for the longest pass play in Steelers history (97 yards).

Smith-Schuster has no chance to make that play if Ben doesn’t hit him in full stride.

Ben isn’t far off. A series of near-misses tells me that. I think of the first-play bomb to Martavis Bryant in Chicago, the one that bounced off his fingertips. I think of an inch or two on the pass to Darrius Heyward-Bey in the end zone in Detroit, the touchdown drop by Eli Rogers the same night and a missed hold of Le’Veon Bell in the end zone in Kansas City, among others.

Roethlisberger should get every opportunity to right himself, given the soft schedule and the talent on hand. He almost never gets hit anymore. He hasn’t been sacked in the past two games. The Steelers have the third-lowest sack percentage in the league.

Also, Bryant will augment the arsenal if he gets his act together in the second half.

Progress already is happening. In three games since the Jacksonville Massacre, Roethlisberger’s yards-perattempt average is way up. He is looking more like himself.

In fact, if you throw away the Jacksonville game (a cynic would tell you Ben did just that), he would be on pace for 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions. One huge game — maybe Sunday against the wretched Colts, a team Roethlisberger has routinely tortured? — and he’ll be headed toward a fairly usual Ben season.

In the meantime, let’s face it: This has become a Bellcentric offense. The Steelers have dialed back — Roethlisberger on his radio show the other day seemed to lament the disappearance of the nohuddle attack — and are winning games that way. The shift occurred midway through last season. They are 13-2 since then, 15-3 including playoffs.

If you were a coach, you’d be reluctant to mess with that recipe, too.

The losses were to New England, Chicago and Jacksonville. Bell missed most of the New England game. He was virtually ignored in the other two. In their wins, the Steelers have prioritized ball security and keeping their defense fresh over any attempts to unleash the modern-day version of the Greatest Show on Turf.

Sure, you’d like more points. The Steelers at 20.9 per game rank 20th, behind even the broken Baltimore Ravens. But the problem isn’t so much between the 20s as in the red zone. It’s fixable (how about some jump balls for Martavis?).

We’re also only halfway home. The Steelers usually improve under Mike Tomlin. They should again. And they could absolutely win it all with this Ben, especially if they play a couple of playoff games at Heinz Field.

But it sure wouldn’t hurt if vintage Ben showed up.