Joe Starkey: Make no mistake, Ben Roethlisberger is the ticket to ring No. 7

Steelers third-string quarterback Josh Dobbs is a pretty cerebral guy. He owns an aerospace engineering degree (with a minor in business) and has worked on advanced engines for fighter jets.

He is literally a rocket scientist.

So it was with intense interest Wednesday that I listened to Dobbs analyze Ben Roethlisberger’s ablation of the Baltimore Ravens.


Turns out Roethlisberger might have even more control of this offense than previously thought.



“All of the play calling and stuff is on him, in-game, making adjustments at the line of scrimmage,” Dobbs said. “I was really in awe with what he was able to do, just watching him manage the game. There were big third downs where he would come up, diagnose the defense, get ‘em with a couple of ‘freeze calls’ and then pick the best play, and then you watch A.B. split ‘em for 50 yards.

“It’s cool to watch that. You don’t know what the play is until the play is run, literally, because you just see him at the line of scrimmage making calls, different signals.

“It’s unreal to watch it in person.”

Roethlisberger, at this very moment, represents the rare melding of elite athletic skill with intellectual mastery. Great athletes are almost always cooked by the time they master the mental part of the game. Not so in this case.

Roethlisberger isn’t going to make those playground plays much anymore, but he can still “make every throw,” as Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Wednesday.

He also personifies the fact that not all winning streaks are created similarly.

The Steelers are storming down the stretch, just like last year. They won their last 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.

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http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/j...s/201712130152

I noticed that Ben seemed to be doing a lot of that hard counting so the D would in essence show their hand and then he’d switch it up. My fear is that defenses will start bluffing and baiting Ben into making the wrong call. But right now, Ben is on fire...

Of course he is. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 86WARD

I noticed that Ben seemed to be doing a lot of that hard counting so the D would in essence show their hand and then he’d switch it up. My fear is that defenses will start bluffing and baiting Ben into making the wrong call. But right now, Ben is on fire...

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All he has to do to counter that is make the count quicker. He calls his play, makes a cadence change and when the d tries to show something else just snap it and catch em flat-footed.