Ben Roethlisberger (1 Viewer)

[Steelers4Life]

I put this in another thread or two, but I expanded on it and wanted to get this out there for people who think he can't succeed when he throws more than 15-20 passes.

Roethlisberger has played in 27 regular season games so far in his career.

In 9 of them, he's thrown more than 24 passes. In those games, he's averaged 28 attempts per game and put up the following stats:

66.0% completion

224 yards per game

8.0 yards per attempt

TD:INT ratio of 1.87 (15 TDs and 8 INTs)

Steelers record: 6-3 (Losses to the Colts, Bengals, and Patriots this year, but he played great against the Pats)

In the other 18 games, he's averaged 17 attempts per game and done the following:

63.5% completion

166 yards per game

9.6 yards per attempt

TD:INT ratio of 1.58 (19 TDs and 12 INTs)

Steelers record: 17-1 (Only loss was to the Ravens in the game Maddox got hurt last year)

So, his completion percentage and TD:INT ratio is actually better when he DOES throw more passes. While the Steelers are clearly a better team when they can run the ball because of the strength of the OL and defense, it's not because he can't be successful doing it.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

When it comes to Roethlisberger, I am concerned only with 3 things.1) INTs2) Completion percentage3) Yards per attemptI don't care if he goes 37-55 for 360 yards and 3 TDs. That means the Steelers aren't running the ball and playing to their strengths. If Ben completes 60%+ of his passes, averages over 8 ypa and doesn't throw a pick, I am satisfied. A line like this :11-17 166 yards 1/0is fine with me any day of the week. In fact, I wonder what the Steelers' record is in games where he meets this criteria. May have to do some research later if I have time...

 

[Steelers4Life]

A line like this :

11-17 166 yards 1/0

is fine with me any day of the week. In fact, I wonder what the Steelers' record is in games where he meets this criteria. May have to do some research later if I have time...

Well, I'd say it's probably around 17-1. It's in my post! Really, 17-0 because the Ravens' game was lost because Maddox left them in a huge hole before Ben took over.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

A line like this :

11-17  166 yards  1/0

is fine with me any day of the week.  In fact, I wonder what the Steelers' record is in games where he meets this criteria.  May have to do some research later if I have time...

Well, I'd say it's probably around 17-1. It's in my post! Really, 17-0 because the Ravens' game was lost because Maddox left them in a huge hole before Ben took over.

It should be 17-0, that Ravens loss last September was not on Ben - they were down something like 20-3 in the third before he even came in.Your post details the 18 games in which he's thrown less than 24 passes. What I was wondering about was what his record is in games in which he completes 60%+, averages 8 ypa, and throws no picks. Actually, I'd even say 1 INT was all right, so we'll say 60% completion, 8 ypa, and no multilple turnovers. I just looked it up, the answer is :

13-0, including the playoffs. Record in games where he doesn't meet the above criteria : 10-4.

 

[Tau837]

I found this interesting, so I looked up the games at pro-football-reference.com. Here they are:2004 Regular Season:

+----------+--------------------------+----------------+| WK  OPP  |  CMP  ATT   PYD  TD  INT |  RSH    YD  TD |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  4  cin  |   17   25   174   1   0  |    4     2   0 ||  6  dal  |   21   25   193   2   0  |    2     8   0 ||  8  nwe  |   18   24   196   2   0  |    5     3   0 || 15  nyg  |   18   28   316   1   2  |    1    -1   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  TOTAL   |   74  102   879   6   2  |   12    12   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+

2004 Playoffs:

Year  Opp   Result  |  CMP  ATT   PYD PTD INT  |  RSH    YD  TD---------------------+--------------------------+----------------- 2004  nyj  W,20-17  |   17   30   181   1   2  |    4    30   0 2004  nwe  L,27-41  |   14   24   226   2   3  |    5    45   0---------------------+--------------------------+-----------------TOTAL                |   31   54   407   3   5  |    9    75   0

2005 Regular Season:

+----------+--------------------------+----------------+| WK  OPP  |  CMP  ATT   PYD  TD  INT |  RSH    YD  TD |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  3  nwe  |   12   28   216   2   0  |    3    17   0 ||  5  sdg  |   17   26   225   1   0  |    2    15   1 ||  8  bal  |   18   30   177   2   1  |    4     4   0 || 12  ind  |   17   26   133   1   2  |    3    21   0 || 13  cin  |   29   41   386   3   3  |    1     2   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  TOTAL   |   93  151  1137   9   6  |   13    59   1 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+

Observations:1. You neglected the 2004 playoff games. That makes his 24+ attempt averages look like this:64.5% completion220 yards per game7.89 yards per attemptTD:INT ratio of 1.38 (18 TDs and 13 INTs)Steelers record: 7-4 (Losses to the Patriots last year and the Colts, Bengals, and Patriots this year)Not as good, but not bad.2. Why did you choose 24 attempts as your cutoff? It appears to me that teams collectively averaged 32 passing attempts per game this year. Ben has only had 3 games with even 30 attempts. He is 2-1 in those games but had a 1.0 TD:INT ratio (6 of each) and averaged 7.37 ypa... he was clearly less effective in those games.3. Your numbers and the ones I posted in 1 & 2 above provide evidence that Ben's outstanding ypa last year definitely correlated to his number of attempts. As attempts go up, ypa goes down. Maybe that is intuitive to some, but there was a lot of discussion of it last year and some (like EBF) used that measure as evidence of his future greatness.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Yeah, 24 passes isn't really a lot, so that seems like an odd number to make the cutoff. Oh, and how did Roethlisberger do in his last start where he threw more than 30 passes?

 

[Evilgrin 72]

I found this interesting, so I looked up the games at pro-football-reference.com. Here they are:

2004 Regular Season:

+----------+--------------------------+----------------+| WK  OPP  |  CMP  ATT   PYD  TD  INT |  RSH    YD  TD |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  4  cin  |   17   25   174   1   0  |    4     2   0 ||  6  dal  |   21   25   193   2   0  |    2     8   0 ||  8  nwe  |   18   24   196   2   0  |    5     3   0 || 15  nyg  |   18   28   316   1   2  |    1    -1   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  TOTAL   |   74  102   879   6   2  |   12    12   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+2004 Playoffs:

Year  Opp   Result  |  CMP  ATT   PYD PTD INT  |  RSH    YD  TD---------------------+--------------------------+----------------- 2004  nyj  W,20-17  |   17   30   181   1   2  |    4    30   0 2004  nwe  L,27-41  |   14   24   226   2   3  |    5    45   0---------------------+--------------------------+-----------------TOTAL                |   31   54   407   3   5  |    9    75   0

2005 Regular Season:

+----------+--------------------------+----------------+| WK  OPP  |  CMP  ATT   PYD  TD  INT |  RSH    YD  TD |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  3  nwe  |   12   28   216   2   0  |    3    17   0 ||  5  sdg  |   17   26   225   1   0  |    2    15   1 ||  8  bal  |   18   30   177   2   1  |    4     4   0 || 12  ind  |   17   26   133   1   2  |    3    21   0 || 13  cin  |   29   41   386   3   3  |    1     2   0 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+|  TOTAL   |   93  151  1137   9   6  |   13    59   1 |+----------+--------------------------+----------------+

Observations:1. You neglected the 2004 playoff games. That makes his 24+ attempt averages look like this:

64.5% completion

220 yards per game

7.89 yards per attempt

TD:INT ratio of 1.38 (18 TDs and 13 INTs)

Steelers record: 7-4 (Losses to the Patriots last year and the Colts, Bengals, and Patriots this year)

Not as good, but not bad.

2. Why did you choose 24 attempts as your cutoff? It appears to me that teams collectively averaged 32 passing attempts per game this year. Ben has only had 3 games with even 30 attempts. He is 2-1 in those games but had a 1.0 TD:INT ratio (6 of each) and averaged 7.37 ypa... he was clearly less effective in those games.

3. Your numbers and the ones I posted in 1 & 2 above provide evidence that Ben's outstanding ypa last year definitely correlated to his number of attempts. As attempts go up, ypa goes down. Maybe that is intuitive to some, but there was a lot of discussion of it last year and some (like EBF) used that measure as evidence of his future greatness.

This is absolutely not inherent. Peyton Manning led the NFL in ypa last year and he threw the ball quite a bit. It's what you do with each throw that affects ypa. The reason Roethlisberger's ypa tends to drop as his attempts go up is simple. When he throws a lot, that means the Steelers are behind. Invariably. In these cases, teams stop stacking the box as they normally do, and Roethlisberger spends a lot of time throwing into double and triple coverage, which results in a lot of incompletions, which are big goose eggs when calculating ypa.When Roethlisberger's ypa is high, it's because the Steelers are playing their game. They're running the ball, and Roethlisberger is throwing against man coverage, and sometimes only against 2 corners, with both safeties in run support.

So, while it may appear as if it's a simple correlation between increased attempts and decreased ypa, there's actually a lot more to it than that. A lot of those games where Ben went 11-16 for 170 yards, they ran the ball 30 times vs. 3 or 4 passes in the second half. If they continued to mix it up, a 22-32 340 yard game would have been easily obtainable. Thus, it's not simply the high # of attempts, it's the circumstances surrounding them that affects ypa in Roethlisberger's case.

 

[Ghost Rider]

I think it is worth point out, too, that Roethlisberger finished 21st in the NFL in interception percentage. What that means is Roethlisberger's INT is so low because he doesn't attempt a lot of passes. However, he was first in the league in yards per attempt and touchdown percentage. Also, he was 9th in completion percentage.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

Yeah, 24 passes isn't really a lot, so that seems like an odd number to make the cutoff.

Oh, and how did Roethlisberger do in his last start where he threw more than 30 passes?

He had 3 picks, but he also had 386 yards, 3 TDs, and a passer rating of 94.2 with a badly injured thumb, and damn near brought the team back to win despite trailing most of the day. Wasn't a terrible game by any stretch - he made some really nice throws in that game.3 games in his career with 30+ passes (2-1 record in these games)

64-101 (64%) 739 yards (7.4 ypa) 6 TD 6 INT passer rating 79.0

Nothign thrilling, but not awful either. Considering the circumstances that typically surrounds his high-attempt days, it's not too bad at all.

 

[Steelers4Life]

Fair point on the playoff games. He was terrible last year in the playoffs and completely worn out, but I really wasn't looking at the playoffs. The only thing that really changes wth those games is the INTs because he threw so many of them. He was just dead tired by the time the playoffs came last year.I chose 24 because it seemed to be a pretty good cutoff when looking as his games. I think he had like one or two games in the 21-24 range, but most of his games were either 24 or more or 20 or less.In his 3 games with over 30 attempts, you're right, his numbers haven't been great. One was his brutal playoff performance against the Jets, and one was his 386 yard, 3 TD, 3 INT performance against the Bengals this year. The other was a hard-fought game against the division-rival Ravens, who always seem to play the Steelers relatively tough. It's such a small sample size that I don't really draw any conclusions from it.Having a YPA around 8.0 would still place him among the NFL leaders, by the way. Not as outstanding as it is right now, but still among the leaders in the NFL. Only 9 QBs in the NFL averaged 30 passes a game.

 

[Steelers4Life]

I think it is worth point out, too, that Roethlisberger finished 21st in the NFL in interception percentage. What that means is Roethlisberger's INT is so low because he doesn't attempt a lot of passes.

However, he was first in the league in yards per attempt and touchdown percentage. Also, he was 9th in completion percentage.

It's also worth pointing out that he's a 2nd year NFL QB, which a lot of people forget because of all the hype he's gotten.He still makes some mistakes typical of a young QB, but he's making much, MUCH better decisions this year than he did last, and he's heading into the playoffs much stronger physically.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

I think it is worth point out, too, that Roethlisberger finished 21st in the NFL in interception percentage. What that means is Roethlisberger's INT is so low because he doesn't attempt a lot of passes.

However, he was first in the league in yards per attempt and touchdown percentage. Also, he was 9th in completion percentage.

It's no accident that 5 of his 9 INTs came in a 2-game stretch- @ IND, vs. CIN - where the Steelers were playing catch up all day long. His other 10 starts, he had 4 INTs in 201 attempts. This ties into what I was saying earlier.

 

[Tau837]

This is absolutely not inherent. Peyton Manning led the NFL in ypa last year and he threw the ball quite a bit. It's what you do with each throw that affects ypa. The reason Roethlisberger's ypa tends to drop as his attempts go up is simple. When he throws a lot, that means the Steelers are behind. Invariably. In these cases, teams stop stacking the box as they normally do, and Roethlisberger spends a lot of time throwing into double and triple coverage, which results in a lot of incompletions, which are big goose eggs when calculating ypa.

When Roethlisberger's ypa is high, it's because the Steelers are playing their game. They're running the ball, and Roethlisberger is throwing against man coverage, and sometimes only against 2 corners, with both safeties in run support.

So, while it may appear as if it's a simple correlation between increased attempts and decreased ypa, there's actually a lot more to it than that. A lot of those games where Ben went 11-16 for 170 yards, they ran the ball 30 times vs. 3 or 4 passes in the second half. If they continued to mix it up, a 22-32 340 yard game would have been easily obtainable. Thus, it's not simply the high # of attempts, it's the circumstances surrounding them that affects ypa in Roethlisberger's case.

You're right about this. I didn't state my point well, but I was thinking specifically of the discussion last offseason about Ben. I was arguing that his ypa last year was so high because he attempted so few passes, for the reasons you described above. I didn't mean to state it as a general rule for all QBs in all offenses.

 

[Steelers4Life]

I think it is worth point out, too, that Roethlisberger finished 21st in the NFL in interception percentage.  What that means is Roethlisberger's INT is so low because he doesn't attempt a lot of passes.

However, he was first in the league in yards per attempt and touchdown percentage.  Also, he was 9th in completion percentage.

It's no accident that 5 of his 9 INTs came in a 2-game stretch- @ IND, vs. CIN - where the Steelers were playing catch up all day long. His other 10 starts, he had 4 INTs in 201 attempts. This ties into what I was saying earlier.

He was definitely rusty against the Colts after missing 3 weeks, and his game against the Bengals was actually impressive if you'd have seen it. The defense was struggling, the RB wasn't great, and Ben kept the team alive in a shootout.

 

[Tau837]

In his 3 games with over 30 attempts, you're right, his numbers haven't been great. One was his brutal playoff performance against the Jets, and one was his 386 yard, 3 TD, 3 INT performance against the Bengals this year. The other was a hard-fought game against the division-rival Ravens, who always seem to play the Steelers relatively tough. It's such a small sample size that I don't really draw any conclusions from it.Having a YPA around 8.0 would still place him among the NFL leaders, by the way. Not as outstanding as it is right now, but still among the leaders in the NFL. Only 9 QBs in the NFL averaged 30 passes a game.

I agree that 3 games is a small sample size.On the last point, does that reflect partial games? That is, if we used only full games that QBs played this year, wouldn't there be more than 9? That is one reason that I just averaged the pass attempts per team.

 

[Steelers4Life]

In his 3 games with over 30 attempts, you're right, his numbers haven't been great.  One was his brutal playoff performance against the Jets, and one was his 386 yard, 3 TD, 3 INT performance against the Bengals this year.  The other was a hard-fought game against the division-rival Ravens, who always seem to play the Steelers relatively tough.  It's such a small sample size that I don't really draw any conclusions from it.

Having a YPA around 8.0 would still place him among the NFL leaders, by the way.  Not as outstanding as it is right now, but still among the leaders in the NFL.  Only 9 QBs in the NFL averaged 30 passes a game.

I agree that 3 games is a small sample size.On the last point, does that reflect partial games? That is, if we used only full games that QBs played this year, wouldn't there be more than 9? That is one reason that I just averaged the pass attempts per team.

Again, another fair point. I didn't reflect partial games. I used individual QBs because I wanted to see how many QBs actually throw the ball 30 times per week, every week, all year. In reality, 2/3 of the league's TEAMS average 30+ passing attempts per week, but when you average Ben's 9 games when he's thrown over 24 passes, he's averaged 28 per game.His 3 games with 30+ passes is just too small a sample size to judge from.

 

[BGP]

The concerns I would have with Ben are as follows:1. In each of his first two seasons, he has gotten injured. He said he played hurt in the postseason last year, but kept quiet about it until the Steelers were eliminated. He has gotten hurt and missed time this year, and there's no telling if he actually has recovered well enough from that yet or not.2. Tying into point 1, his numbers have fallen off late in the year in each of his first two seasons. He started 2005 throwing 9 TDs to 1 INT. He ended it throwing 6 TDs to 7 INTs. That's an enormous falloff in production. There are questions about him:1. Will he always be injury-prone?2. Are the injuries why his production falls off? And if so, isn't that a major concern with him if he can't stay healthy throughout his career?3. Will his performance continue to deteriorate in the postseason, as it did in 2004?He may turn things around in future years and have no problem. But as it stands now, he's definitely a huge problem.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

The concerns I would have with Ben are as follows:

1. In each of his first two seasons, he has gotten injured. He said he played hurt in the postseason last year, but kept quiet about it until the Steelers were eliminated. He has gotten hurt and missed time this year, and there's no telling if he actually has recovered well enough from that yet or not.

2. Tying into point 1, his numbers have fallen off late in the year in each of his first two seasons. He started 2005 throwing 9 TDs to 1 INT. He ended it throwing 6 TDs to 7 INTs. That's an enormous falloff in production.

There are questions about him:

1. Will he always be injury-prone?

2. Are the injuries why his production falls off? And if so, isn't that a major concern with him if he can't stay healthy throughout his career?

3. Will his performance continue to deteriorate in the postseason, as it did in 2004?

He may turn things around in future years and have no problem. But as it stands now, he's definitely a huge problem.

He is NOT a huge problem.Will he always be injury-prone? Unless one is clairvoyant, there's really no way to know, so I won't address this. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, time will tell, and his career as a whole will be duly affected by the answer.

His performance this year did not fall off dramatically as you would have people believe. You can't simply throw numbers out there. He had a very hot start to the season statistically because he fattened up on TEN and HOU. Late in the season, he had to play Cincinnati and Indy, and those two games represent 5 of his 7 INTs.

Here is his game-by-game log for the season. I have highlighted GOOD games (passer rating of 95 or better,) SOLID games (passer rating of 80-95,) and POOR games (rating below 60.) He had no games I'd consider mediocre (61-79.)

09/11 TEN W 34-7 Yes 11 9 81.8 218 2 0 158.3

09/18 @HOU W 27-7 Yes 21 14 66.7 254 2 0 139.8

09/25 NE L 20-23 Yes 28 12 42.9 216 2 0 93.8

10/10 @SD W 24-22 Yes 26 17 65.4 225 1 0 105.4

10/16 JAC L 17-23 Did Not Play

10/23 @CIN W 27-13 Yes 14 9 64.3 93 2 1 93.2

10/31 BAL W 20-19 Yes 30 18 60.0 177 2 1 85.0

11/06 @GB W 20-10 Did Not Play

11/13 CLE W 34-21 Did Not Play

11/20 @BAL L 13-16 Did Not Play

11/28 @IND L 7-26 Yes 26 17 65.4 133 1 2 58.7

12/04 CIN L 31-38 Yes 41 29 70.7 386 3 3 94.2

12/11 CHI W 21-9 Yes 20 13 65.0 173 1 0 109.0

12/18 @MIN W 18-3 Yes 15 10 66.7 149 0 0 99.0

12/24 @CLE W 41-0 Yes 20 13 65.0 226 1 0 120.0

01/01 DET W 35-21 Yes 16 7 43.8 135 0 2 34.1

Now, his two poor games did come later in the season, against Indy and Detroit. Indy was his first game back from the knee, on the road, against the best team in the NFL, on Monday night, playing in a dome for the first time. No surprise there. The last game of the year, he admittedly did not play well at all - that's the only unexplained stinker of the season. I don't however, as you seem to, feel that this is a harbinger of poor playoff performance. It was simply a bad game, though not as god awful as it seems based purely on these #s. He did run a TD in and likely would have had at least 1 TD pass if the Steelers weren't looking to send Bettis out with a TD bonanza. That's really neither here nor there, though. The point is : in his 12 starts this year, 6 of them would be considered GOOD. 3 came in the first half of the year, 3 in the second half. In fact, 3 of his last 4 games were GOOD games, which is the best stretch he had all season long. So, just lumping together stats from a sample of games doesn't tell the tale. 5 of the 7 INTs you reference over the second half of the season just so happened to come in the games in which the Steelers were playing catch-up (notice the 67 attempts over those 2 games, as opposed to an average of about 20 attempts per game otherwise)

The circumstances of the games being played and the quality of competition had a lot more to do with the numbers you posted than a late-season swoon.

 

[Godsbrother]

The concerns I would have with Ben are as follows:

1. In each of his first two seasons, he has gotten injured. He said he played hurt in the postseason last year, but kept quiet about it until the Steelers were eliminated. He has gotten hurt and missed time this year, and there's no telling if he actually has recovered well enough from that yet or not.

2. Tying into point 1, his numbers have fallen off late in the year in each of his first two seasons. He started 2005 throwing 9 TDs to 1 INT. He ended it throwing 6 TDs to 7 INTs. That's an enormous falloff in production.

There are questions about him:

1. Will he always be injury-prone?

2. Are the injuries why his production falls off? And if so, isn't that a major concern with him if he can't stay healthy throughout his career?

3. Will his performance continue to deteriorate in the postseason, as it did in 2004?

He may turn things around in future years and have no problem. But as it stands now, he's definitely a huge problem.

The bottom line to me is that this season Ben has played poorly in only 2 games this season. And truth be told he really didn't play all that bad last week as he was victimized by 2 drops by Ward (one an easy catch in the endzone), 2 by Wilson, 1 by Morgan, and one by Randel El that resulted in a pick. Heck just give Ben the TD that Ward dropped and the one Randel El let get picked and Ben's number are actually pretty decent.Now I know that you're going to say that stuff happens to all QBs and you would be right. I am just saying that sometimes you have to look beyond the stats and actually watch the football game.

And you act as if Carson Palmer has a great track record himself. The guy has had a great season, no doubt about that, but he's thrown 5 picks in his last three games against such powerhouse defenses as CLE, DET, and BUF. And Palmer has 0 postseason experience -- certainly he's never played in a game in the NFL as big as the one he'll play this week.

As far as being injury prone, I would like to see how Palmer, Manning or any other QB would have fared behind the shakey o-line the Steelers had out there earlier this season. Fortunately for Ben the Steelers will have their entire line intact for this game.

Should be a good game.

 

[BGP]

The concerns I would have with Ben are as follows:

1. In each of his first two seasons, he has gotten injured. He said he played hurt in the postseason last year, but kept quiet about it until the Steelers were eliminated. He has gotten hurt and missed time this year, and there's no telling if he actually has recovered well enough from that yet or not.

2. Tying into point 1, his numbers have fallen off late in the year in each of his first two seasons. He started 2005 throwing 9 TDs to 1 INT. He ended it throwing 6 TDs to 7 INTs. That's an enormous falloff in production.

There are questions about him:

1. Will he always be injury-prone?

2. Are the injuries why his production falls off? And if so, isn't that a major concern with him if he can't stay healthy throughout his career?

3. Will his performance continue to deteriorate in the postseason, as it did in 2004?

He may turn things around in future years and have no problem. But as it stands now, he's definitely a huge problem.

The bottom line to me is that this season Ben has played poorly in only 2 games this season. And truth be told he really didn't play all that bad last week as he was victimized by 2 drops by Ward (one an easy catch in the endzone), 2 by Wilson, 1 by Morgan, and one by Randel El that resulted in a pick. Heck just give Ben the TD that Ward dropped and the one Randel El let get picked and Ben's number are actually pretty decent.Now I know that you're going to say that stuff happens to all QBs and you would be right. I am just saying that sometimes you have to look beyond the stats and actually watch the football game.

And you act as if Carson Palmer has a great track record himself. The guy has had a great season, no doubt about that, but he's thrown 5 picks in his last three games against such powerhouse defenses as CLE, DET, and BUF. And Palmer has 0 postseason experience -- certainly he's never played in a game in the NFL as big as the one he'll play this week.

As far as being injury prone, I would like to see how Palmer, Manning or any other QB would have fared behind the shakey o-line the Steelers had out there earlier this season. Fortunately for Ben the Steelers will have their entire line intact for this game.

Should be a good game.

I agree that Palmer has slumped late in the season, but this is the Ben thread. Carson Palmer does not have to face a defense that grabbed over 30 INTs this year in this game.The bottom line is that NFL careers are often very short - too short to build a good track record. By the time the track record is established, careers are over. I feel you either jump on the trends early or not at all.

 

[redman]

When it comes to Roethlisberger, I am concerned only with 3 things.

1) INTs

2) Completion percentage

3) Yards per attempt

I don't care if he goes 37-55 for 360 yards and 3 TDs. That means the Steelers aren't running the ball and playing to their strengths. If Ben completes 60%+ of his passes, averages over 8 ypa and doesn't throw a pick, I am satisfied. A line like this :

11-17 166 yards 1/0

is fine with me any day of the week. In fact, I wonder what the Steelers' record is in games where he meets this criteria. May have to do some research later if I have time...

The jury is out as far as just how good of a passer Ben is. He's good, no doubt, but he's been shielded from a lot of pressure by the quality of the team - particularly the defense - around him. That was shown in part during last year's playoffs when the Steelers needed him to pass more and he was shaky doing it. Still, he was a rookie in his first playoff games.

What I'd like to see more of from him to truly judge him as a QB are more situations where he's leading the team down by a TD or more in the 4th quarter. Can he lead his team on the critical two-minute drives to win the game? That's what I want to see more of from him before I draw conclusions.

 

[Steelers4Life]

What I'd like to see more of from him to truly judge him as a QB are more situations where he's leading the team down by a TD or more in the 4th quarter. Can he lead his team on the critical two-minute drives to win the game? That's what I want to see more of from him before I draw conclusions.

He's already done that a number of times in his first 2 seasons...This year, he did it against Baltimore, driving the team 60 yards in under 2 minutes to kick the winning field goal.

He also did it against San Diego with a 40 yard drive in about 4 minutes with some help from Bettis and Maddox after he hurt his knee. Reed won that one with a field goal, too.

He almost did it after carrying the team on his back against Cincinnati despite the 3 INTs.

Last year in Dallas, he completed 9 passes in a row on 2 4th quarter TD drives to win the game, 24-20.

He drove the team 56 yards in the final 2 minutes of the game for a last second win in Jacksonville least year.

And he drove the team 67 yards for a TD in about 3 minutes to turn a 4 point deficit into a 3 point lead last year against the Giants. He threw for 316 yards that day and carried them on a day the defense didn't show up.

There may have been another one, but I think that's it.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

When it comes to Roethlisberger, I am concerned only with 3 things.

1) INTs

2) Completion percentage

3) Yards per attempt

I don't care if he goes 37-55 for 360 yards and 3 TDs.  That means the Steelers aren't running the ball and playing to their strengths.  If Ben completes 60%+ of his passes, averages over 8 ypa and doesn't throw a pick, I am satisfied.  A line like this :

11-17  166 yards  1/0

is fine with me any day of the week.  In fact, I wonder what the Steelers' record is in games where he meets this criteria.  May have to do some research later if I have time...

The jury is out as far as just how good of a passer Ben is. He's good, no doubt, but he's been shielded from a lot of pressure by the quality of the team - particularly the defense - around him. That was shown in part during last year's playoffs when the Steelers needed him to pass more and he was shaky doing it. Still, he was a rookie in his first playoff games.

What I'd like to see more of from him to truly judge him as a QB are more situations where he's leading the team down by a TD or more in the 4th quarter. Can he lead his team on the critical two-minute drives to win the game? That's what I want to see more of from him before I draw conclusions.

He is 7-1 lifetime as a starter in games decided by less than a TD. Only loss came in overtime this year vs. New England. 6 times in those 7 wins, Roethlisberger led the team down the field for the winning score on the Steelers final offensive possession (technically, in a 33-30 win last year over the Giants, the Steelers did get the ball back one more time and kneeled it out after Eli threw an INT on the Giants' final possession)What you touched on is the EXACT reason why I like Roethlisberger so much as a QB. When the chips are down, and the Steelers need a big score, more often than not he delivers the goods.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

What I'd like to see more of from him to truly judge him as a QB are more situations where he's leading the team down by a TD or more in the 4th quarter.  Can he lead his team on the critical two-minute drives to win the game?  That's what I want to see more of from him before I draw conclusions.

He's already done that a number of times in his first 2 seasons...This year, he did it against Baltimore, driving the team 60 yards in under 2 minutes to kick the winning field goal.

He also did it against San Diego with a 40 yard drive in about 4 minutes with some help from Bettis and Maddox after he hurt his knee. Reed won that one with a field goal, too.

He almost did it after carrying the team on his back against Cincinnati despite the 3 INTs.

Last year in Dallas, he completed 9 passes in a row on 2 4th quarter TD drives to win the game, 24-20.

He drove the team 56 yards in the final 2 minutes of the game for a last second win in Jacksonville least year.

And he drove the team 67 yards for a TD in about 3 minutes to turn a 4 point deficit into a 3 point lead last year against the Giants. He threw for 316 yards that day and carried them on a day the defense didn't show up.

There may have been another one, but I think that's it.

Playoffs vs. Jets - drove the team for the winning FG in overtime after Brien missed the FG that extended the game. You nailed the rest - well done.