LATROBE, Pa. - Jerome Bettis thinks it's too early to tell, but Hines Ward won't shy away from saying the Pittsburgh Steelers made the perfect choice when they selected quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in the first round of the draft.

"He's got it," said Ward. "He looks great. I'm excited."

Roethlisberger is already taking snaps with the first team, and he's played well in recent practices.

On Monday, he led the second team during the practice-ending one-minute drill. Roethlisberger ran 20 yards on a scramble and completed a pass while rolling to his left. The drive ended with a short field goal.

On Saturday, in front of a large crowd at St. Vincent College, Roethlisberger faked a handoff into the line and outran linebacker Alonzo Jackson to the corner on a naked bootleg during a full team scrimmage. While on the run, Roethlisberger zipped a 30-yard completion down the field.

"I actually felt pretty comfortable," said Roethlisberger. "I was nervous coming into it, but once I got into it I felt fine."

"What surprised everybody is his athletic ability," quarterbacks coach Mark Whipple said of the 6-5, 241-pounder. "He's getting better every day."

Roethlisberger wasn't so comfortable on his first day out. After missing four practices while hammering out a contract agreement, he stepped into the huddle, looked around at the faces he recognized from TV and barely spit out the play.

"He was low-key," said Ward. "I said, 'Man, get in here. This is your huddle.' I understand that being a rookie, the first-round pick, you come in and all the veteran guys are looking at you, but he was barely loud enough for anyone to hear the play clearly. I pulled him to the side and said, 'Look, you're our quarterback. When you step in the huddle, our eyes are on you. You've got to have that confidence.'"

Roethlisberger took to the advice and began acting as if he were still at Miami, Ohio.

He's had his ups and downs, of course. One play after his bootleg pass, Roethlisberger fumbled the snap. But he had enough poise to pick it up and dump it off to a running back for a short gain.

"He's getting more and more comfortable with all the guys," Ward said. "Now it's just a matter of him putting it all together. The best thing for him is getting those reps with the first team. You get the feel for routes, how the line's setting up the pocket."

Roethlisberger isn't expected to take the starting job from Tommy Maddox this year, but he's playing well enough to force his way onto the second team. Currently, Charlie Batch and Brian St. Pierre are listed ahead of the rookie on the depth chart, but the coaches are giving Roethlisberger as many first-team reps as possible.

"The potential, he has it. Everything," Ward said. "And he's out here working after practice, trying to get better each day. When you have a guy like that, you have a guy with the potential to be a great quarterback."

"He's got a really, really strong arm. That's the one thing I've noticed," said Bettis. "Some of the throws he's made have been pretty impressive. Once he figures out what he's doing and where he needs to go, he's going to be a good one. He's got a cannon."

Does he have championship potential?

"You've gotta believe he does. He's shown it at the level he's played on," Bettis said. "Now, it's hard to always predict how a guy's future is going to be, especially in this league. You see some of the greatest college football players come out and not have success, so it's really hard to say, especially with the quarterback."

Notes:

The Steelers announced the signing of outside linebacker Adrian Ross to a one-year contract. Ross (6-2, 245) played six seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals. He played college football at Colorado State with Joey Porter and Clark Haggans, the Steelers' projected starters at outside linebacker. Ross was added to provide depth at the position. The Steelers also added defensive lineman Anthony Herron (6-3, 280), who played one game in 2001 before spending the 2002 season on the Detroit Lions' physically-unable-to-perform list. To make room for the two players, the Steelers released long-snapper Chance Pearce and rookie safety Yaacov Yisrael from Penn State.