Steelers coach Mike Tomlin showed last season that he would not tolerate ineffectiveness on the playing field when he benched Anthony Smith as his starting free safety.

It took Tomlin, however, eight games before he turned from Smith to Tyrone Carter, who replaced him in the 15th game of the season.

Tomlin sounded as if he will take a similar, patient approach toward any personnel moves in the aftermath of Ben Roethlisberger's Bloody Sunday in Philadelphia.

"I'm not going to have a knee-jerk reaction," Tomlin said Sunday night.

He also might not have Roethlisberger around long if it does not stop. After three games, Roethlisberger has sustained a hyperextended knee, a slightly separated right shoulder and an unspecified injury to his right hand from the smackdown by the Eagles in Philadelphia.

X-rays on Roethlisberger's hand taken in the game showed no broken bones. Tomlin said he would have more information on the injury by yesterday morning, but declined to release that information publicly.

Finding a way to protect their quarterback is not an issue that just developed. Roethlisberger was sacked 46 times in 2006, then sacked 47 times last season. Those represent the second- and third-most sacks suffered by a Steelers quarterback since at least the 1969 season, long before the statistic became official.

Only Cliff Stoudt was sacked more often in one season, 51 times in 1983.

At this rate, however, that many sacks could be a relative soft landing for their quarterback. Roethlisberger is on pace for 64 sacks. His rate of sacks to pass attempts last season was 11.6 percent. This year, it's 20.3 percent.

The Steelers are passing less and Roethlisberger's getting bounced around more.

The Steelers changed their starting right tackle and center in 2007, and their starting left guard and center again this season. Tomlin and the players say it involves more than just the five starting offensive linemen because there are all kinds of factors that go into pass protection, and not just blocking.

There are, for example, "hot" routes -- predetermined short routes receivers run when they recognize a blitz. There is the protection call, which Roethlisberger was given the freedom to adjust last season at the line of scrimmage. There is awareness in and out of the pocket by the quarterback. There must be receivers who hang onto passes -- Hines Ward, Rashard Mendenhall and Santonio Holmes dropped catchable passes Sunday. And there has to be successful plays to keep a rampaging defense off balance -- draws, screens and the like.

The Steelers got little of that Sunday as their offense was dazed and confused in Philadelphia.

"Yes, it starts with protection," Ward said, "but we had guys breaking hots, we missed some hots and sometimes that saves some hits of your quarterback.

"We had different guys blocking different guys. A lot of guys were thinking. When you're thinking out there, you're losing your proper technique and consequently you're going to get beat one on one. You do think you have a guy, but you don't know if it's the right guy or not.

"We have to see that defensive front again and have everyone on the same page and make sure we pick up those fronts. It wasn't that different a blitz but we had two guys on one man and let one go free and consequently Ben got hit on a lot of those plays."

Ward peppered everyone with blame.

"The quarterbacks, receivers, tight ends, running backs," he stated. "The quarterbacks missing hots, the receivers missing hots, the tight ends missing hots."

And that's not all.

"We thought one protection slid the other way but it actually was to the right. There were times we thought we were hot on the right when actually we were hot on the left. It's a matter of not having 11 guys on the same page."

And that's not all.

"When we tried to run [the snap] on 'three' it was just a matter of losing focus. Big Juicy [guard Chris Kemoeatu], we told everyone on 'three, on three.' He jumps on 'three;' it's a lack of concentration."

That would have been a false start, one of two by Kemoeatu. He wasn't alone, though. Everyone on offense had a hand in it.

Tomlin has alternatives -- as one example, he has $7 million backup tackle Max Starks, who started when the Steelers won Super Bowl XL. He has veteran tackle Trai Essex, who can play guard, too, but did not dress on Sunday, and second-year guard-center Darnell Stapleton.

He also has shown he has something else available to him -- patience, and it appears more than anything that is what he will deploy to try to stop the bleeding of his quarterback.