PITTSBURGH — It is great that the Steelers, behind a resurgent Ben Roethlisberger, are 11-1 and at the top of the NFL. It was a bad loss Monday to Washington, no doubt, but there were a lot of circumstances beyond football that probably contributed to that loss.
James Conner, Steven Nelson, Chris Boswell and Markice Pouncey will all be back healthy for the next game against Buffalo. The Steelers might get Joe Haden back for that game, too. They played Monday a little short-handed and played a team that had twice as much rest — and twice as many days to prepare — so it isn’t too alarming that the Steelers lost a game for the first time.
That doesn’t mean that the Steelers get a complete pass, though, as they certainly didn’t play well enough to win. They dropped seven passes, which is inexcusable. They couldn’t run the ball. T.J. Watt was a man among boys, but he had a chance to fall on a fumble at a crucial time and didn’t get it done. They couldn’t convert on fourth down. Jordan Berry didn’t have a great game. Mike Tomlin was afraid to try a 45-yard field goal … the list goes on.
Rightfully so, most of the focus in the aftermath of the game has focused on the Steelers’ lack of a running game. Mike Tomlin said it best at his news conference: “If you don’t get a yard, you don’t deserve to win.” The Steelers can’t get a yard when they need one, and in turn they have tried to use the short passing game to replace the run.
The running game might not get fixed this year, but here is the part of the equation that I think is holding the Steelers back: that short passing game. The Steelers don’t have Tom Brady or some other quarterback who loves to dink and dunk defenses to death.
Ben Roethlisberger apparently has the offense that he wants, but he has seemingly forgotten who he is and what has made him great. Roethlisberger isn’t traditionally a dink-and-dunker. Roethlisberger is the old gunslinger, the quarterback who loves to live on the edge and throw caution to the wind.
Roethlisberger at one time was one of the best in the league at taking deep shots and throwing the ball down the field for big plays. He needs to get greedy again. He needs to start throwing the ball down the field, and he needs to make this offense vertical again. This dinking and dunking stuff is boring, it isn’t particularly effective now that teams have figured it out, and it doesn’t fit Roethlisberger.
I think back to 2018 when he tossed the ball around the field, including a 51-yard touchdown pass, in a win over an unbeaten Kansas City team. He completed 17 passes that day for 252 yards, which is almost 15 yards a completion. And Antonio Brown had 155 receiving yards on eight catches, which is almost 20 yards a catch.
These days, a 15-yard completion is the result of a 7-yard pass with 8 yards after the catch. James Washington had a 50-yard touchdown reception on Monday, but it was actually a 6-yard reception, two missed tackles and a 44-yard run after the catch.
Roethlisberger is averaging only 6.4 yards per attempt and only 9.6 yards per completion. Those are by far his two lowest totals of his career, as this is the first year he has ever been below 7 yards per attempt and 10 yards per completion. He is throwing the ball a lot — he is on pace to have his second-highest amount of completions and attempts — he just isn’t throwing it for big chunks any more.
I know getting rid of the ball quickly has helped him avoid getting hit. I know that these higher-percentage throws means fewer interceptions and mistakes. But it has also meant more tipped and batted-down passes and, somehow, more dropped passes.
I also think it actually hurts the run game, as defenses have begun to bunch closer to the line of scrimmage because they have no fear of the deep ball. They don’t have Antonio Brown, that’s true, but Chase Claypool, James Washington and JuJu Smith-Schuster all have proven they can get vertical and make big plays.
After that 2018 game against Kansas City, Roethlisberger — whom people had started to question — remarked, “I guess this old cowboy has got a little left in him.”
Here is hoping the old cowboy does have game left in him, because that guy was fun to watch. That guy made big plays and that guy gave the Steelers a chance to score from anywhere on the field at any time. Roethlisberger made a career out of being a gunslinger and throwing the ball down the field, and he needs to get back to that or this Steelers’ offense won’t scare anyone any time soon.
