ALEX Week 15: Ben Roethlisberger's Risk Taking

[polamalubeast]

by Scott Kacsmar

Ben Roethlisberger has essentially been leading ALEX on third down for the entire season. His aggressive style has paid off as the Steelers have been racking up points in franchise-record fashion. One of the ways Roethlisberger has stood out this year is the way he attacks on third-and-short (defined as 3 yards or less to go). Often a running down, Roethlisberger has used this situation to take deep shots to his wide receivers. This season, there have been five passes on third-and-short with an ALEX of at least 40, and that includes a Hail Mary listed below. Roethlisberger has three of them, completing two.

The overall success of Pittsburgh's offense and the willingness to attack in short-yardage situations has helped Roethlisberger to have the lowest average need yards on third down this season. His 6.5 average is a half-yard less than the next closest quarterback (Joe Flacco at 7.0 yards).

Keep in mind that Roethlisberger has missed more than four complete games, so we are talking about just 26 passes on third-and-short from him this year. But on those plays his ALEX is a whopping 12.7. The other 2015 quarterbacks average a 4.4 ALEX in that situation. Roethlisberger has been able to convert 61.5 percent of those plays, so he is making his aggressive style pay off. I wanted to look at the data from 2006-2014 to see just where his season stands in ALEX on third-and-short. As it turns out, a familiar name kept popping up.



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http://www.footballoutsiders.com/ale...rs-risk-taking

[Count Steeler]

WTF is ALEX?

[salamander]

WTF is ALEX?

Sounds like something along the lines of JARVIS from Iron Man, which is appropriate since Ben basically is Iron Man.