We are spoiled as Steelers fan, that's for sure, but Imo, a franchise QB is someone who can win games with his arm, not just reach the playoffs. Ben isn't that anymore. The quicker Ben is out, the closer we are to chasing #7. There's more than likely going to be some rough years in between, but I don't like them settling for mediocrity. Imo, now is the time for a rebuild. Go get Oline and a RB in this draft and then draft the hopeful franchise QB in 2022.Originally Posted by Born2Steel
Wexell: Been wrong before, but it's time Steelers let Roethlisberger go
By JIM WEXELL Jan 22
I have no problem with the signing of Dwayne Haskins.
Then again, I had no problem with the signing of Michael Vick.
Any other bad guys I'm missing?
Oh, I did request the trading of Ben Roethlisberger back in 2010, so maybe I'm not the win-at-all-costs guy I like to fancy myself as. In fact, it's my opinion that the Steelers should release Roethlisberger now.
I guess that means another Super Bowl's just around the corner.
Although, I'm really not that adamant about releasing Roethlisberger. It's just that I believe Roethlisberger at $19 million gives the Steelers less of a chance than Bud Dupree + Mason Rudolph at about that same price.
And I don't say this lightly. I have as much respect for Roethlisberger as his greatest sycophants. Hey, maybe I've become one of his sycophants, because I genuinely do respect him.
It wasn't always that way. As previously mentioned, I wrote that they should trade him after Milledgeville, before the 2010 season. And I'm one who believes in letting the law handle the law, and once that obligation is fulfilled, it's back to football - as long as the locker room accepts it.
I just wasn't so sure the locker room accepted Ben back then.
I asked Joey Porter recently - for my book on Troy Polamalu, which also served as a diary of two championship seasons - why no one talks to me about Roethlisberger.
"You don't want to go there," Porter said. "It's the organization's dirty, little secret."
Porter was referring to the way the organization let Ben get away without working as hard as the others back in the day. It was the rumor that went round and round during that decade.
I have no doubt that Roethlisberger realized success way too soon. Of course, that didn't affect the football team. Success is success. But off the field, it couldn't help but have blown up the head of someone who couldn't wrest the starting position away from the coach's son in high school, and then "settled" for a MAC school instead of the Ohio States and Michigasn of the Midwestern football world, and then became the forgotten QB of the big three on draft day, slipping all the way to 11th.
Who wouldn't be driven to prove the world wrong? And who wouldn't have let that proof, that success, go to their head?
Hey, there are special people in this world, but I'm not one of them. I know I would've been a holy terror as a world champion 20-something QB who overcame all of the above to prove himself. In fact, I was a holy terror just by getting a job covering high school football in my Prove-It-Ville hometown.
So, I get that it's difficult to walk in a person's shoes, especially when the world is being given to that person on a silver platter.
But I had heard enough of the rumors, and then the charge (ultimately dropped) in Georgia, and then his flippant video response from the locker room. I think he also had one of those weird man-buns in one of the group pictures from Georgia. It all turned me off and so I joined in the chorus that he had to go.
Bravo for the patience of the Rooneys. And bravo for people such as Polamalu, who asked me (and my readers) to withhold judgment, that what's more important is what's to come for Ben and how he could redeem himself.
And Ben did exactly that. He's raised a beautiful family and turned into a team leader. It's such an impressive turnaround that I'm hoping to team up with him to write the book on that redemption. So trust that I come to you with trepidation when I say it would be best, in my opinion, to release him.
I just don't like what the offense has become. The running game is non-existent. The QB doesn't sneak for short yardage, nor does he have the athletic ability anymore to even fall on a fumble.
Do we blame the QB for the running game? Not for all of it. The runners are backups. And the offensive line stunk the joint up. We also saw that the scheme lacked creativity. We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for what all of that predictability was setting defenses up for.
It was for nothing.
Part of the problem with the scheme, I believe, had to do with the QB, and that's why I can't see much of this changing, even if they do fix the line and the backfield.
Hey, if it could change, and Roethlisberger could operate an effective run game while still possessing that strong throwing arm, I could forget about his lack of mobility and fumble-pouncing flexibility. But I have my doubts that the offense will change much, particularly if Matt Canada is promoted to coordinator.
Maybe that's what's really bothering me, because if Roethlisberger's running the show, how is anything going to change with someone who's never coordinated an NFL offense? Canada is suddenly the guy to force Roethlisberger to run a sneak or throw from play-action?
Perhaps that's why the Steelers are interviewing Hue Jackson. He has a past of coordinating offenses rich in downfield passing, power running, pulling guards, alignment shifts and creativity. And, he's been around the NFL block a bit. He has the gravitas that comes with being a former head coach. That he failed miserably at it, as Dick LeBeau once did, shouldn't besmirch Jackson's reputation as a successful coordinator.
Yeah, so, now I'm the guy who calls for hiring out of a good-ol'-boys network. Recirculate, regurgitate, remove; that's normally the pattern of those good ol' boys.
But Jackson might actually restore my confidence in Roethlisberger, who still has his arm strength. It was the inaccuracy of the deep ball that bothered me throughout the season, and I think - maybe I'm just hoping - that he can regain the accuracy once he gets used to his rebuilt arm.
Can Roethlisberger regain his accuracy and with his former consistency?
Can the Steelers draft both a running back and half an offensive line?
Can a good ol' boy regain his status as a quality coordinator after destroying his reputation as an 11-44-1 head coach?
And can the defense return to its early-2020 rank as the No. 1 unit in the league with Alex Highsmith instead of Dupree?
Man, those are a lot of questions that need answered in the affirmative if Roethlisberger is going to return to the Super Bowl the way he did the last time I called for his departure.
It's not easy for me to say this, because Ben and I have overcome our heated exchanges and come to respect each other these last half-dozen years or so. But I have a job to do. And the way I see it, it's time to move on.
Remember, part of my job is to also be wrong. A lot. That's why I'm the writer and they're the football organization with the untarnished brand.
But I think I could handle the criticism of being wrong again. I did the last time.
https://247sports.com/nfl/pittsburgh...nse-159728849/
As a football player I am glad he was back, as a person I was and am glad he's redeemed himself and got second opportunity. I really hope that those girls feel the same way. But, if that was my daughter, that was stuck in that bathroom with him, I'd probably sing a different song. And I like to think most of us would.
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I'm also glad for his personal turnaround. I'm also one that was on record numerous times at Steeler Fever to release Ben during that time. I don't regret feeling that way. In fact, knowing what I know 10 some years later, I'd still want him released. They sold out for championships. Only there were none. I'm happy that Ben is no longer a jerk. But his history is part of his story.
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His arm is shot.
All Defense!
Hindsight is 20/20.
In 2010, the Steelers were okay with keeping Ben at all costs, and you couldn't blame them. The Steelers went back to the Super Bowl that very season, and it looked like the franchise was set with Ben. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Didn’t look shot all season though...maybe part of it’s fatigue of not throwing the ball for a year and then coming back and throwing it 50 times a game?
Edit that autocorrect...yikes...
Last edited by 86WARD; 01-24-2021 at 08:00 AM.
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I think this has a lot to do with it, coming off shoulder surgery last Feb, I know my shoulder is still not 100%. Granted, I didn’t have an NFL trainer or top doctors, but I also didn’t have an NFL season to work through either.
I think he injured it midseason in a game where he got taken down and landed on that elbow (cowboys game maybe?). Even the announcers mentioned it. Seemed shortly after that game they started the 2 yard max pass strategy. He would only really start slinging it when the team was down.
Claypools production went down with it.
Before that he was in the MVP talks.
It did look shot all season. That's the thing. The winning "hid" the flaws. But they were there all year. Inaccurate on deep balls all year from Day 1. Throwing with poor ball placement (inside shoulder instead of outside shoulder or hip high instead of head high etc). Passing up "big shots" to take "safer" throws. The other thin I noticed is that for almost the entire season, he had no lower body in his throws. His legs/feet were rooted to the ground and he just threw it all arm and hips. It took almost half the season for teams to realize they were not playing Ben R 1.0 (the guy who could hang 500 yards on you and hit WRs in stride anywhere on the field). But once they realized they were facing Ben R 2.0 (the guy who can't reliably make down field throws), they squished all their defenders into a smaller portion of the field, overwhelmed the offensive line, and "tackled the catch" to almost total suffocate the offense (I realize that the offensive design didn't help).
So it isn't that Ben R 2.0 can't throw the ball really far or really hard (although find highlights of when he puts extra mustard on it -- his mechanics are all over the place and the ball knuckles). It is that he can not throw with the pinpoint accuracy and aggressive anticipation that puts a QB into the top tier(s) of NFL QBs. Right now, he is in the Andy Dalton, Alex Smith, Teddy Bridgewater tier but with no mobility and zero desire to get hit.
All of this was on tape from Week 1 of 2020. But the winning and the comeback story hid the flaws for a long time. That's why the MVP talk was joke. I truly hope that Ben considers why he played like he did in 2020. Either he believes that a "full offseason" w/out rehab will allow him to rebuild the physical tools that were missing in 2020 or he needs to honestly self-assess and make the same decision that Phillip Rivers did and walk away.
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https://www.pro-football-reference.c...R/RoetBe00.htm
Ben's numbers speak for themselves. IF Ben was inaccurate this season then he has been inaccurate for his entire career. You can use this link and go year by year by year if you really want to compare and contrast.
I am not talking about completion percentage. I am talking about the placement of the throw. And that has changed. Ben used to be really good at leading WRs away from DBs. He used to be good about hitting guys in stride. He used to be good at putting the ball where only his guy had a chance to make a play. That just did not happen consistently in 2020.
How many times this past season was a guy running left to right and he had to reach back and low for the throw? Or he was going along the sidelines and had to twist and turn for a ball thrown to the wrong shoulder? The 2 point play to Juju against Cleveland is a good example. Juju had the position to "box out" the DB if the ball was head high and to the sidelines. Ben put it chest high and to the field side of Juju's body. The DB was able to get a hand in and break up the pass. Again, this is really picking a QB's game apart and placing really high expectations on performance. But this is the NFL and seemingly little differences like I just outlined are all the difference in the world in outcomes.
Same game. Think of the INT that clanged off Diontae Johnson's hands. I know, he hit him in the hands - totally wrong place to put it on DJ. But he hit a moving WR a few feet over his head. To me, based on what I have been told and read about QB mechanics, that is totally indicative of a QB with flawed mechanics that is sailing balls for some reason or another. I suspect it is because Ben R is putting all arm "shot-puts" instead of moving his feet and upper body in concert and zipping balls in there. His feet rarely moved once he set up in 2020. He never seemed to rotate his hips through the throwing motion. I am not describing it well because I am not a QB mechanics guru, but I know enough to know that you are not intended to throw with everything below your hips stuck in cement.
In this highlight video from 2017-18, his lower half moves fairly fluidly through the entire throwing sequence: https://youtu.be/ltpT69KhLVk
In this from parts of 2020, his lower half does not consistently flow through the throw: https://youtu.be/IOOuWAuwnPk and it got worse as the season went on once the games and lack of rest started to pile up.
I'm sure that now that I laid some of this out, someone with more knowledge than me will point out the mistakes in observation and understanding I have made. And that is fine. But this is/was what I think I noticed and I do not know if it caused some of the other things or was just a coincidental occurrence. But Ben R in 2020 did not look like the same QB in 2020 that he was in even 2018.
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Compare ALL of the stats. Not just completion%. Compare to his championship seasons. But since the stats don’t back up the Ben is done argument it goes to ball placement? Lower body positioning? Ok cool.
It goes to on-field results. Some games Ben was throwing for under 5 yards an attempt. His yards per attempt was down 1.3-2.6 based on other seasons. You can go deeper and find the more detailed stats that show how Ben was almost always throwing short of the sticks. By a lot. Something he rarely did in prior seasons.
If you can not watch the 2020 Steelers offense and admit that the passing game was vastly different than previous versions, then I don't know what to tell you. There were plays that were not obvious run downs where actual NFL defenses were playing zero high safety alignments. That is a pretty big signal that no one respects your QBs ability to throw down the field.
Use the stat chart you posted. Look at AY/A and Y/C. Down by a noticeable amount.
Now go look at those same stats league wide. Ben/Steelers rank in the bottom third - at best.
Here: https://www.pro-football-reference.c...20/passing.htm #26 in AY/A
And here: https://www.pro-football-reference.c...20/passing.htm #33 in Y/C
That is not a good set of rankings to be in. If you look at the 2020 stats and the guy's name wasn't Ben Roethlisberger, people would be arguing that whatever team that QB was on should be looking into an upgrade for 2021. The only stat Ben placed in the top half of the league in was TDs. And he needed the third most attempts in the league to do it.
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The Steelers offense was a ‘throw short, run long’ philosophy. Ben hit guys down field all season long. The meat and potatoes of the offense was get the ball out quick. 2.3secs average is the proof of what I’m saying. Number of passes knocked down at the LOS is proof. The offensive philosophy is what went wrong, not Ben’s arm.
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The Steelers had the 2nd most dropped passes in 2020. That means passes the WR should have caught but didn’t. The number is a concern but the timing of drops is the real killer. When your offense schemes getting the ball to the playmakers quickly in order to let them make plays, then those playmakers drop the pass, it kills drives much the same as offensive penalties. The only thing an offense can do worse than drop passes and commit penalties is turn the ball over.
Because Ben can't throw down field or take a hit. That's why the philosophy came about.
Look at the WRs and TE this team rostered. These are downfield guys. If they really wanted to run a short passing offense the entire receiving room would be Welker clones. They have one on the roster.
They spent 6 weeks trying to run the ball and take shots. It never came together because the QB couldn't hit his shots. So they called what they could.
Ben has been one of my favorite Steelers ever and one of the QBs that has just been astounding to watch over the years. But unless there was/is an underlying strength and conditioning issue, Father Time came for him during the 2020 season.
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The Steelers were top10 in YAC. That’s where throw short, run long came from. Steelers were also top20 in passes of 25+ yards.
#1 in receptions btw
If you watched a QB that still looked like one of the 10 best in the league, then awesome. Maybe a scheme upgrade vaults the 21 Steelers right back into it.
I saw an aging QB that was getting by on grit and guile as the season wore on and his physical abilities wore down. I saw a QB who was part of the problem rather then the best solution.
It doesn't matter because there is a 98% chance Ben is the starting QB in 2021.
Say the Steelers had the same roster but no QBs signed for 2021. Ben has just come off the exact same 2020 season but for another team. Steelers have plenty of cap space. Would you sign him for $25 million to be your 2021 starter?
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How Ben ranks in top whatever QBs is completely beside the point. The conversation is his physical ability and you saying he can’t throw the ball anymore. He was #1 in receptions, top10 in YAC, top20 in completions of 25+yards. There’s rankings if that’s what means the most. 2of3 of those categories he WAS top10. AND his receivers were #2 in drops.
I feel like we’re dancing in circles here.
He can't push the ball down the field. The end. Neither could Brees and Rivers. They both retired. So should Ben.
Is that simple enough?
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Except that he did though.
Ok. I give in. You're right. A QB whose stats are in Alex Smith and Mitch Trubisky levels is totally the answer in 2021.
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Those stats work though?
Huh? No. Those two stink.
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You know what I meant. I put up stats and you poopoo them. But you found the legit stats? 2nd most drops not relevant? #1 in receptions means nothing? Top10 in YAC has nothing to do with the offensive philosophy? But some stat in line with Alex Smith and Trubisky is the tell-tale stat? That is terrible.
I meant that the offense you paint the picture of with your supposedly telling statistics is one where the QB is unwilling or unable to make plays down the field. Continually throws short of the sticks and hopes the receiver can make a series of defenders miss and rack up a ton of YAC.
That is Trubisky to Cohen or Howard. That is Alex Smith to insert RB or TE here. That is Andy Dalton to whoever remained healthy for the Cowboys. That was Joe Burrow before he got hurt being protected from having to challenge NFL DBs down the field.
That is not the offense you are going to win a SB with. Can you win some games? Maybe even a bunch? Absolutely. Teams do every year. But will you come up far short of your ultimate goal? You bet.
So I have zero interest in a diminished and declining Ben Roethlisberger puffing and wheezing his way across the 2021 finish line at the helm of a throw short run long 8-8 football team.
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Which is why the first order of business for the offseason was firing the OC. No real plan in place but Fichtner was gone immediately. I hope we replace him with Bienemy or Leftwich personally.
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