Roethlisberger in The Athletic

[Born2Steel]

Fair and valid points. But the constant drumbeat of how it is all the dropped passes, poor o-line play, and a bad OC is, for me personally, irritating. And I realize others mileage may vary, but the general refusal amongst paid Steelers observers and fans to acknowledge that Ben flat out struggled in 2020 regardless of any other issues is more than a bit pie in the sky.

Somehow it has changed from "Ben made all these WRs great" to "the WRs are destroying the offense" without acknowledging the contradiction inherent in those two statements.

Somehow an offensive line with 5 new starters is going to be leaps and bounds better than a highly experienced and decorated line was in one off-season? And that will lead to the QB correcting his accuracy and velocity issues on passes downfield?

It just reads like everyone is desperate to come up with scenarios aside from the obvious one that 2021 Ben R is going to look a heck of a lot like 2020 Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, or the final season or so of Eli Manning.

Truth is Ben did make a lot of WRs look great. Truth is the WRs dropped a lot of passes last season that killed offensive drives. No contradiction at all. The OL discussion is a separate one from 2018 Ben vs 2020 Ben vs 2021 Ben. These comparisons to Brees(won the division and made the playoffs) Rivers(made the playoffs) and Eli(didn't play last season) simply do not make nor break either side of the discussion about Ben's performance either. You make the prediction that Ben will be terrible/washed up/a mere shadow of his former self in 2021. I get it. Just because some disagree with that prediction does not make us all near sighted or Ben goggled. You are pessimistic about nearly every facet of this team heading into 2021. You have been consistent in this for a long while now. I get it. But if upbeat talk about the upcoming season is irritating to you maybe stop reading those for a while. The political threads on here are irritating and annoying to me, I don't read those.

One last thought...If I talk up my team and players that never makes me wrong. Saying I think the different position groups and players will have a better 2021 than 2020 is not something I'll ever have to come back and eat crow on.

[Mojouw]

Truth is Ben did make a lot of WRs look great. Truth is the WRs dropped a lot of passes last season that killed offensive drives. No contradiction at all. The OL discussion is a separate one from 2018 Ben vs 2020 Ben vs 2021 Ben. These comparisons to Brees(won the division and made the playoffs) Rivers(made the playoffs) and Eli(didn't play last season) simply do not make nor break either side of the discussion about Ben's performance either. You make the prediction that Ben will be terrible/washed up/a mere shadow of his former self in 2021. I get it. Just because some disagree with that prediction does not make us all near sighted or Ben goggled. You are pessimistic about nearly every facet of this team heading into 2021. You have been consistent in this for a long while now. I get it. But if upbeat talk about the upcoming season is irritating to you maybe stop reading those for a while. The political threads on here are irritating and annoying to me, I don't read those.

One last thought...If I talk up my team and players that never makes me wrong. Saying I think the different position groups and players will have a better 2021 than 2020 is not something I'll ever have to come back and eat crow on.

Sure, never argued against the total # of drops being too much. But refusal to acknowledge that the seeming limitations of the QB helped to create a situation for a great deal of those drops is stubborn optimism for no real reason.

https://steelersdepot.com/2021/06/st...-observations/

Out of 43 drops, 28 (65%) were under 5 yards down the field. Those #'s and my own flawed and hazy memory of the 2020 season, have me picturing a bunch of times WRs had to either, catch the ball and make a move against 1 defender (or more) in order to gain yards, or were on the move and the ball was poorly placed, or a combination of both. Of course, others were totally stationary WRs who just dropped it.

The biggest offender was DJ. All his drops are here: https://steelersdepot.com/2021/06/br...ohnson-part-3/

At most, he had 15 drops on 144 targets. That is 10.4%. If you knock out 5 for rough ball placement, then he is about 7%. Are drops still an issue?

Also, look at the drops in the linked chart. That is a ton of drops on early downs within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage. Those stink, but the fact that the offense was reliant on 3 yard passes and making guys miss in order to sustain drives is the root cause here. Why was that? My theory is because the QB was not physically capable of reliably doing much else.

Others claim that is far from the case and the short passing game became the only offensive weapon because the OL was terrible. So I see that as strongly connected. Either the team consistently passed from behind the LOS to 5 yards past the line of scrimmage either because the OL was too bad to protect for any longer or because the QB couldn't hit deeper developing pass routes. So the root cause of that is really important and the two are totally linked. Or is there something I am not seeing?

Optimism is cool. Optimism is great. But when it is not tempered by past precedent it just seems totally unwarranted.

[Shoes]

These are the kind of DJ drops that are an issue imö. I hope catching tennis balls have helped him but I have my doubts, I have doubts about Ben also.

This was against the Bills on 3rd and 7 in Dec




looks a bit like college

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/13748306

[Mojouw]

These are the kind of DJ drops that are an issue imö. I hope catching tennis balls have helped him but I have my doubts, I have doubts about Ben also.

This was against the Bills on 3rd and 7 in Dec




looks a bit like college

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/13748306

No argument from me that DJ has a concentration problem and had a # of passes that an NFL WR has to catch dropped in 2020. BUT...I took a look at the results of those drops and it pushes back a bit against the "stalled the offense" idea.

I used this chart to find the plays in each game: https://steelersdepot.com/2021/06/st...-observations/
Then the box scores/game logs from here to find the drive results: https://www.pro-football-reference.c...s/pit/2020.htm

Results of each drive with a DJ drop in 2020 by week (I omitted the one drop in the playoff game because that game was just a dumpster fire and I don't want to think about it ever again. Kinda like the Godfather III.):
Week 1: TD on drive
Week 2 TD on drive
Week 7: TD on drive
Week 9:Punt on drive, but only after first down made on the series with the drop.
Week 10: Drive ending drop
Week 12: Drop short of the sticks on 3rd down. Drive results in a FG.
Week 12: Drop short of the sticks on 3rd down. Drive results in a Punt. Drive ending drop.
Week 13: TD to DJ later on the drive.
Week 13: Drop (10+ yards short of sticks) on 3rd down. Drive results in a Punt.
Week 13: Drop on early down. DPI on 3rd down results in conversion of the series. Drive ends in FG.
Week 14: Drop on first down. Drive ends in a punt.
Week 14: Drop short of sticks on 3rd down. Drive results in a punt. Drive ending drop.
Week 16: 2 drops on the same series. One on 1st and 10 and the other on 3rd and 10 well short of the sticks. Drive results in punt. Counts as one drive ending drop.

6 out of 14 drops were on drives that resulted in points. 6 out of 14 led to a failed series and a punt. 2 out of 14 dropshad no impact on the series that drop took place on - meaning that the drop took place on a conversion down that was 10+ yards from the drop point.

So that means that DJ stalled the offense on 5 drives (two were on the same series) all season. That hardly seems season altering to me. I am not attempting to say that DJ's drops are "ok" or "not a big deal" but they hardly seem to be the outcome determining factor that I keep reading about.

I am too lazy to do the same thing for any of the other drop prone WRs from last season on the team.

[86WARD]

One player stalled the offense 5 times. Depending the context, that could be extremely significant. It also puts a lack of trust in the team to go to that player in the clutch. I mean if those 5 drops are catches by AB, those could be game changers.

[Mojouw]

One player stalled the offense 5 times. Depending the context, that could be extremely significant. It also puts a lack of trust in the team to go to that player in the clutch. I mean if those 5 drops are catches by AB, those could be game changers.

So if it is 3rd and 12 and a WR drops a 3 yard pass...does it change anything? Is that the same or different than a drop of a 3 yard pass on 3rd and 5? Depending on how you answer those two questions...DJ's game altering drops can shift around between 5 and about 2.

I just find it hard to believe that 5 drops were altering the offensive game-plan and the way the QB played in 2020. DJ was still targeted 144 times!

[Born2Steel]

Sure, never argued against the total # of drops being too much. But refusal to acknowledge that the seeming limitations of the QB helped to create a situation for a great deal of those drops is stubborn optimism for no real reason.

https://steelersdepot.com/2021/06/st...-observations/

Out of 43 drops, 28 (65%) were under 5 yards down the field. Those #'s and my own flawed and hazy memory of the 2020 season, have me picturing a bunch of times WRs had to either, catch the ball and make a move against 1 defender (or more) in order to gain yards, or were on the move and the ball was poorly placed, or a combination of both. Of course, others were totally stationary WRs who just dropped it.

The biggest offender was DJ. All his drops are here: https://steelersdepot.com/2021/06/br...ohnson-part-3/

At most, he had 15 drops on 144 targets. That is 10.4%. If you knock out 5 for rough ball placement, then he is about 7%. Are drops still an issue?

Also, look at the drops in the linked chart. That is a ton of drops on early downs within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage. Those stink, but the fact that the offense was reliant on 3 yard passes and making guys miss in order to sustain drives is the root cause here. Why was that? My theory is because the QB was not physically capable of reliably doing much else.

Others claim that is far from the case and the short passing game became the only offensive weapon because the OL was terrible. So I see that as strongly connected. Either the team consistently passed from behind the LOS to 5 yards past the line of scrimmage either because the OL was too bad to protect for any longer or because the QB couldn't hit deeper developing pass routes. So the root cause of that is really important and the two are totally linked. Or is there something I am not seeing?

Optimism is cool. Optimism is great. But when it is not tempered by past precedent it just seems totally unwarranted.

I already stated "last thought...". Done with this conversation.

[Steeler-in-west]

If you look at Ben’s stats you would not think there was much of a drop off, the only thing that deviates from the other seasons is the yards per completion 9.5 down from the career average of 12 and sacks - only 13, which is also down from typical 25. Everything else looks good, completion %, total yards are comparable, TD-int ratio is great - that tells me it was weak O-line get the ball out in a hurry scheme - it doesn’t look like Ben going downhill at all - this season will reveal the real truth of course - but I still think if there were real issues with his arm he wouldn’t have come back nor the Steelers have brought him back - I give both sides judgement more credit than some do

[86WARD]

So if it is 3rd and 12 and a WR drops a 3 yard pass...does it change anything? Is that the same or different than a drop of a 3 yard pass on 3rd and 5? Depending on how you answer those two questions...DJ's game altering drops can shift around between 5 and about 2.

I just find it hard to believe that 5 drops were altering the offensive game-plan and the way the QB played in 2020. DJ was still targeted 144 times!

Depending on the context, yeah it totally could.

[Mojouw]

Depending on the context, yeah it totally could.

The context is in my post above. Or what else are the factors you’re considering?

[86WARD]

The context is in my post above. Or what else are the factors you’re considering?

You said that 5 drops doesn’t seem altering to you. If 5 drops happens in a different context…which it could, it could be season altering. He clearly has a history of drops. Second in the league if I remember correctly…maybe most. I can’t remember.

So yeah…could be altering seeing the history is there…

[Mojouw]

You said that 5 drops doesn’t seem altering to you. If 5 drops happens in a different context…which it could, it could be season altering. He clearly has a history of drops. Second in the league if I remember correctly…maybe most. I can’t remember.

So yeah…could be altering seeing the history is there…

Ok. That is why I think that DJ's being prone to drops is more than a bit troubling. He could drop 5 in 2021 that all would have been game winning TDs or allowed conversions on critical downs. But...the offensive struggles in 2020 had very little, at least when I went through it, to do with his drops. Maybe Claypools or Erbrons were more impactful?

I just think that everyone see's the drops # and says "Well, there you go! That is the cause of the 2020 Steelers offensive struggles." and I don' think it is really true. It certainly didn't help one little bit...but the problems run far deeper than that.

[86WARD]

[DesertSteel]

^^^^

The next picture is the ball going through his hands!

[Steeler-in-west]

He’s just planning too far ahead

[Dissolv]

TD-int ratio is great - that tells me it was weak O-line get the ball out in a hurry scheme

I totally agree with this. They could not run, and the quick pass scheme was definitely at least partially to protect the weakness of the Oline. Ben was also coming off shoulder surgery, and had trouble with the deep ball. Of the two components, the QB and the OLine, the Oline definitely would be the portion I would not keep of the two. I mean, I wasn't thinking that we'd lose freakin' everybody, but Ben doesn't look washed up. He looks like he needs offensive support. Yes, that does mean less drops. But it also means a credible run game, and more reliable time in the pocket to try to get those deep throws in. We (the fans) don't know if the shoulder (and knees) were holding him back, or if it is going to be better this year, but it isn't unreasonable to at least have a wait and see attitude about it.

Father time is going to get Ben at some point, but he is also very tough, and you don't need a perfect QB to win the super bowl. Manning went 13-of-23 for 141 yards and only scored 2 points via passing in the 2015 season Super bowl WIN. Oh yeah, 1 interception and 5 sacks. I'm thinking Ben has more in the gas tank than that -- look at the Cleveland comeback attempt last year. That's a banged up Ben doing all that with no run support and a defense that seemed to wander off in search of a snack. (Okay, they had accumulated injuries that hurt)

I"m a LOT more concerned about the supporting cast than I am about Ben. We lost the whole Oline and some key defensive players. On the other hand, the front office has been working overtime it seems, and appears to have some type of plan. So at least, as a fan, I get to look forward to a season that isn't doomed. It might wind up being a terrible team. But it isn't the Bengals either. They surprised me last year with that red hot 11-0 start. Let's see if they can do something like that again.

[hawaiiansteeler]

Chase Claypool: Ben Roethlisberger’s putting the ball where it needs to be

Posted by Josh Alper on August 2, 2021

When Steelers training camp was getting started last month, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said that his arm felt fresher than it did last year and one of his wideouts said on Monday that all continues to be well on that front.

Chase Claypool made an appearance on NFL Network and shared that he’s set a goal of 14 touchdown catches after reeling in nine of them during his rookie season. He said he has no doubt that Roethlisberger’s arm is strong and sound enough to deliver that amount of scoring passes.

“He looks great. He’s putting the ball where it needs to be, and that’s all you can ever ask for,” Claypool said. “I’ve never really understood why people always question his arm strength. I don’t think he’s ever displayed in a game where his arm strength was an issue. His timing’s so good, even if his arm strength wasn’t where it was, his timing’s so good, he could time it up to where he doesn’t have to throw a bullet into a tight gap.”

Roethlisberger and the Steelers slumped badly after starting the 2020 season with 11 straight wins, so a fast start isn’t going to clear all doubts about the team’s fitness this time around. It would clear some, however, and it would likely help Claypool’s cause on the touchdown front.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...t-needs-to-be/

[Born2Steel]

Be honest here. Show of hands all those that want to see Big Ben Roethlisberger fail and fall flat on his face. At least admit it.

I am of the opinion that Ben will reach at least close to a personal best this season with TD passes, yards per completion, completion %, and TD/INT ratio. This will be a magical season for Steelers nation.

[Dwinsgames]

Be honest here. Show of hands all those that want to see Big Ben Roethlisberger fail and fall flat on his face. At least admit it.

I am of the opinion that Ben will reach at least close to a personal best this season with TD passes, yards per completion, completion %, and TD/INT ratio. This will be a magical season for Steelers nation.

I personally have no clue how well or poorly he will do ...

my thoughts are simple , Father time is undefeated however I do not believe last year was all on Ben ...

protection was not great , line play in general was not good consequently no running game to aid slowing the pass rush or helping get that 3rd and 2 converted ...

Throwing so much does not help an arm that was close to tired before they ever got out of camp due to a year off and surgically repairing damage and the rehab process ...

I think the increased age factor can be erased in the formula ( over last year) because the rehab is also out of the equation making that a push ...

the repair should theoretically make his arm stronger than is was prior to the season ender as that injury wasnt an all at once thing it was ongoing and getting worse and worse until it was fully "broke"


so I look for a typical Ben type season 35 TDs 12 picks 4500 yards and if we get those kind of numbers from him there is no reason we are not a playoff team with SB aspirations if this defense is anything close to what we assume it will be

[DesertSteel]

Be honest here. Show of hands all those that want to see Big Ben Roethlisberger fail and fall flat on his face. At least admit it.

I am of the opinion that Ben will reach at least close to a personal best this season with TD passes, yards per completion, completion %, and TD/INT ratio. This will be a magical season for Steelers nation.

You seriously think there are a lot of Steeler fans that want Ben to fail this year?? I think you're way off. Plenty think he will, but that doesn't mean they want him to. Personally, I think he will end up with good stats, enough wins to get to the playoffs, but will lack the clutch plays when needed to put the team over the top. I guess I just described the last 10 years. But I will enjoy it until we're eliminated.

[Born2Steel]

You seriously think there are a lot of Steeler fans that want Ben to fail this year?? I think you're way off. Plenty think he will, but that doesn't mean they want him to. Personally, I think he will end up with good stats, enough wins to get to the playoffs, but will lack the clutch plays when needed to put the team over the top. I guess I just described the last 10 years. But I will enjoy it until we're eliminated.

I didn't use to. We'll see.

[Steeler-in-west]

but will lack the clutch plays when needed to put the team over the top..

Those clutch plays may come back, a lot of those were with the help of AB, Bell, Hines and Heath Miller,

he’s going to have more help and playmakers around him this year.