PITTSBURGH — Ben Roethlisberger insisted for weeks he wasn't playing as badly as his statistics might indicate. Those numbers were as terrible as the Steelers' 1-3 record, too.

Now that he's had a breakout game, is he the Super Bowl-winning Big Ben of last season — or still a work in progress after two major medical problems only a few months apart?

"Hines (Ward) and I have been telling you guys from Week 1, we're close," Roethlisberger said Wednesday. "Eventually if you keep getting closer and closer, you're going to click. Hopefully we can continue to click like we did last week."

The Steelers (2-3) couldn't have been expected to start as poorly as they did, nor could they have anticipated routing Kansas City 45-7 as they did Sunday. Roethlisberger threw seven interceptions and no touchdown passes in three starts — the only NFL starting QB without a touchdown pass until last week — before throwing nearly as many TD passes (two) as he did incompletions (three) on Sunday.

That was the efficient, make-few-mistakes Roethlisberger that won 27 of his first 31 starts for the Steelers until losing his first three this season. His passer rating remains so low (60.2) that he is not among the league's top 30, but he hopes that scoring so many points and ending the three-game losing streak will give the offense some momentum.

"We all needed a game like last week," Roethlisberger said as the Steelers began practicing for Sunday's game at Atlanta (3-2). "We got a win. I think offensively we needed that as a group because we came out and played well in all phases of the offense as a group and put together an outstanding performance"

The Super Bowl champion Steelers are 1Z\x games out of the AFC North lead.