Let us not mince words here. The Pittsburgh Steelers offense is as bad as ever. Everyone has their own scapegoat to pin this mess on, and I cannot say some of it isn't warranted. Randy Fichtner is obviously a massive problem, along with the coaching staff as a whole. But let us say you had to pin this all on one individual player on the offense, who would it be? Juju is a popular target because of his social media presence, but he is far from the biggest issue. For all he has done for the Steelers organization, one man is to shoulder the biggest blame for the faulty offense, and his name is Ben Roethlisberger.
I want to clarify that I was never one to put immense blame on Ben in the past. In previous years, he would be the top reason why the offense was as effective as it was. When Ben went down last year, we got to see just how valuable he was to the offense. Coming back this year, many Steelers fans such as myself had high hopes that the offense would rebound, and for the longest time it did in a big way. But I believe Ben bit off more than he can chew for a man of his age. When you're a quarterback throwing on average 40 to 50 passes a game, you can get away with it for maybe a game or two. Throwing with that much regularity is simply unsustainable, and the doors were going to blow wide open sooner than later. After what we have seen the past month, I can safely say they blew wide open. What seemed to be a dream start and a potential MVP season for Ben has turned into a nightmare.
If you look simply at the numbers for the season, you can say he's doing fine. Look into the past month, and you'll start to see what he's becoming. Age has finally caught up to him, but the offensive system functions like he is still in 2017 form. Either the coaches have chosen to ignore it, or Ben himself is stubbornly clinging onto whatever made him great in the past, I cannot say. But I can say this: Ben throwing the ball over 40-50 times may very well have his fingerprints all over it. He is no longer that type of quarterback, but from what we've heard about the health of his elbow earlier this year, I believe Ben still thinks he has something left. And that may just be hurting the Steelers in the long run. It's sad to see, as in my life I have had the privilege to watch someone like him be the signal caller for several years and win a couple Super Bowls on the way. But we have to be honest, this offense starts and stops with Ben, and he's contributing to its downwards spiral.
The question remains: can the Steelers fix the problem? It may not look it right now, but yes, they still can. The way their offense functioned during the first couple months of the season was nothing short of perfection. Ben played smart football picking apart defenses with short, quick passes and they balanced that out with a solid run game. And for whatever reason they have chosen to abandon that since the game versus Dallas. It worked for a few weeks, but inevitably it was going to come crashing down, and that it did.
At the time of writing this, the Steelers came off a Monday Night Football loss to the Bengals, and they had a decent run game going. But that can only go so far as Ben takes them, and he took them down throughout the entire game. The receivers can no longer be blamed. Ben simply needs to play smarter and recognize what he can and cannot do anymore. This starts with running more than one formation.
There's debate whether or not Ben or Fichtner calls the plays, but no matter who does, they need to recognize this. This team has potential and talent on the offensive side of the ball, but they fail to reach that potential due to a severe lack of creativity. A majority of their plays are called from shotgun formation. Teams playing the Steelers know they are a pass heavy team, and with shotgun being a pass favored formation, it's no surprise teams have caught on. This part cannot be blamed as much on Ben, but again, we do not know who's truly calling the plays. Fichtner, at first, replaced Todd Haley because he allowed Ben more freedom with play calling. You can say Fichtner is Ben's puppet, but it's all conjecture. The main point is that this offense is fundamentally flawed, and much of the blame can be shouldered onto the signal caller himself.
As mentioned already, the Steelers have time to fix this. They do not have much time, but they have it nonetheless. These last two weeks will prove critical to the Steelers not only for this season, but next season, as Ben has already committed to playing in 2021. If these next two weeks prove to be the same struggles, I believe that commitment will be the death of the Steelers for 2021. For all that he has done, you can put no bigger blame than on Big Ben Roethlisberger himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment