Ben Roethlisberger threw interceptions on his first two possessions playing on an injured left ankle, and the San Francisco 49ers took a 3-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers after the first quarter Monday night in a game delayed 20 minutes by a power outage at Candlestick Park.
Roethlisberger limped along at the start with a sprained ankle that limited him this week in practice. He completed 3 of 4 passes for 46 yards in the first drive, including a 36-yarder to Mike Wallace before Carlos Rogers intercepted Roethlisberger’s pass running into the end zone.
The 49ers’ 17-play, 69-yard drive stalled when Alex Smith threw two incompletions in the end zone. San Francisco settled for a 22-yard field goal by David Akers.
Dashon Goldson picked off a pass by Roethlisberger on Pittsburgh’s second possession.
The power throughout the stadium went off about 25 minutes before the scheduled kickoff of 5:40 local time. The public address system stopped working and fans were left in the dark until an emergency light came on in the far corner of the stadium.
A 49ers team spokesman said transformers appeared to fail outside the stadium.
Joe Molica, a spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said the power company was still investigating the cause of the outage.
”So far I don’t know what the cause is yet,” Molica said. ”We do know that Candlestick was the only customer affected by this outage.”
Molica said PG&E and park authorities had made all the routine checks earlier in the day and that all systems appeared to be in order.
Source: Yardbarker: Pittsburgh Steelers