Roethlisberger has led this Steelers streak in the home stretch

year ago. They won their final seven games in 2016. They’ve won eight in a row going into “Part I” Sunday against the New England Patriots. But they are going about it quite differently.

IN 2016, in the wake of a 35-30 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the coaching staff made the conscious choice to scale back the offense. They needed to protect a flailing defense, so they opted to play keepaway and grind clock, and they had just the guy to do it.

Over his final eight full games, including two in the playoffs, Le’Veon Bell averaged 27.5 carries. That kind of workload is nearly unheard of these days. It played to smashing results, too, until Bell’s legs fell off in the AFC championship.

It looked like they were going to use the same formula this year. Bell averaged a ridiculous 29.5 carries over the first four games of the winning streak, which started after a 30-9 home loss to Jacksonville in which he was virtually ignored. And after which Roethlisberger, intercepted five times, sarcastically suggested, “Maybe I don’t have it anymore.”

But after the first four wins, everything changed.

The ol’ cowboy came back, guns a blazin’.

What has transpired over these past four games is nothing short of remarkable. Roethlisberger has attempted 196 passes, easily the busiest four-game stretch of his career. And it’s not totally skewed by the career-high 66 attempts against Baltimore, either. He has attempted 40 or more passes in four consecutive games for the first time in his career.

Roethlisberger has completed 131 of those 196 attempts for 1,446 yards, 12 touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 102.6. He still has it. Rookie receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster only wished he could have participated Sunday. He was at home, unfairly suspended, watching in his football helmet (he did say he took it off to eat and go to the bathroom, if you’re interested, and based on this town’s current obsession with JuJu, I’m sure you are).

Smith-Schuster can’t wait to join the frenzy. Seven receivers caught at least one pass against Baltimore.

“Everyone was eating,” he said. “I was like, ‘Where’s my plate at?’ Ben’s on fire right now.”

When you have an elite quarterback at the very top of his game, surrounded by talent, it’s like having an elite pitcher or goaltender. It gives you a great chance to win it all.

Roethlisberger, right now, is the hottest quarterback in the league. Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and others might be having better overall seasons. Aaron Rodgers might be a better player. Carson Wentz and Jared Goff have better futures.

But at this precise moment, projecting ahead to Sunday and perhaps the next month and a half? I’ll take Ben. That doesn’t mean the Steelers won’t suddenly decide to play keepaway again. Bell hasn’t gone anywhere. He has averaged just 15.7 carries per game over the past four but has 35 catches.

That’s the beauty of this enterprise. The Steelers offense has become Patriotslike, capable of morphing into whatever it needs to be on a given day. Roethlisberger, Bell and Antonio Brown have taken turns in the star role. Sometimes all at once.

“It’s so unusual,” Belichick observed, “to have players of that caliber all on the same team.”

Suddenly, you don’t hear of how the Steelers can’t win if Ben throws 40-plus passes. He was 13-30 in such games until the past four (one of the rare wins coming against the Patriots in 2011 when he spread them out and went 36 of 50). Now you almost want him to throw that much.

Forget trying to keep Brady off the field. Outgun him.