Ignore Pittsburgh's Fans: Steelers Can Pass

By ALLEN BARRA
September 22, 2008


Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger should sue his offensive line for lack of support — and while he's at it, he should file a class action suit against their fans. Pittsburgh fans want to win — they want to win playing "Steelers football," which means strength and running with the pass held back as a secondary weapon. That's how they think they won all their Super Bowls back in the 1970s under head coach Chuck Noll, with the Steel Curtain holding the opposition to under 17 points and Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier running up the gut. It's as if Terry Bradshaw, John Stallworth, and Lynn Swann had never existed.

Steelers fans bombard their radio talk shows and Web sites with criticism of head coach Mike Tomlin and offensive coordinator Bruce Arians whenever they call for what the local fans regard as too many passes — i.e., whenever the Steelers come close to throwing as often as they run. It's about time for the Pittsburgh coaches to ignore their fans and go with the team's strengths, rather than ignoring them.

The Steelers have about the worst offensive line in the NFL, certainly the worst among any team that thinks it has a serious shot at the Super Bowl. Well, that's not entirely true: The Steelers' front five block fairly well for running back Willie Parker, who rushed for 1,317 yards last season. But when pass blocking, they were as porous as AIG's balance sheet. Last year, Big Ben was one of the most "hurried" passers in the league, constantly in danger of being sacked, knocked down, or flushed out of the pocket, and only the kind of improvisational skills that Craig Ferguson must envy kept the Steelers' 2007 season from being a disaster.

Pittsburgh's pass blocking is bad, but the Steelers' game plan plays into their opponents' hands by setting up too many third-and-long situations where pass rushers can ignore the run and tee off on Roethlisberger. With a great passer, a smallish offensive line, and a fine set of receivers — among them 2006 Super Bowl vet Heinz Ward and a talented rookie whose name must have been appropriated from a character in "The Dukes of Hazzard," Limas Sweed — the Steelers would appear to be equipped only to pass, but they don't seem to know it.

Unfortunately, the NFL's defensive coordinators know it all too well: Each game, you see more and more defenders sneaking up at the line of scrimmage. In the Eagles' 15-6 victory over Pittsburgh in Philadelphia yesterday, it sometimes seemed as if the Eagles were ignoring the receivers all together and rushing everyone.

Roethlisberger was sacked nine times and knocked down on 12 others. That was almost as many times as he was able to get the ball away, 25, which was good for just 131 yards. Even inside the last five minutes while leading 10-6, a situation where most defenses would have played off the ball in some kind of prevent, the Eagles did the smart and daring thing and kept on blitzing. They shut down the man who many regarded as one of the four or five best passers in the game — and remember, this was a Philadelphia Eagles defense that gave up 41 points to the Cowboys last Monday night.

Before the season, it seemed almost certain that the Super Bowl winner would come from the AFC. Now, with Tom Brady gone, the Colts in a September swoon, and Pittsburgh's offensive breakdown, it seems very likely that the balance of power will swing dramatically to the NFC.

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When Brady went out for the season with a knee injury, everyone asked: Could the Patriots win with just their defense? The question presupposed that back-up quarterback Matt Cassel couldn't move the Patriots' offense with consistency, and that their defense wasn't primarily responsible for the team's success over the last few years.

The first assumption, about Cassel, was correct. The second was not. When future historians look back on the Patriots' mini-dynasty of the early 21st century, they will realize that New England won those trophies primarily on their defense. Brady was good, and sometimes very good, in those championship seasons and postseasons, but he was great only in 2007 — and that's the year the Patriots didn't win. Brady has never been the team's backbone, and the real reason New England fans didn't despair at the news he would miss all year is that, until further notice, the Patriots still had one of the two or three best defenses in the league.

The Miami Dolphins' 38-13 humiliation of the Patriots yesterday was further notice. Finally settling into a groove with head coach Tony Sporano's West Coast offense and playing behind good blocking (which is rare for him), Chad Pennington riddled New England's secondary with 226 yards on only 20 passes. Pennington was the team's main offensive force, though running back Ronnie Brown got the headlines with 113 yards and three touchdowns — but 62 of those yards came on a trick play, a direct snap to Brown in the fourth quarter when the game was already out of reach. The main reason it was out of reach at that point was Pennington, who finally proved what many have long suspected: that beyond their defensive line, the Patriots are ordinary. Their four starting linebackers, averaging nearly 34 years, are the oldest in the league, and their defensive backs (except for Ellis Hobbs, the lone holdover from 2007), are unproven and unspectacular.

Before the season, everyone who follows pro football was curious as to why Bill Parcells would want take on the job of running the worst team (the Dolphins were 1-15 in 2007) in the NFL. Now we know: Parcells quickly perceived that any improvement in Miami would be to his credit. Team Tuna isn't going to win anything this year, but they can make things very interesting in the AFC East in the second half of the season.

Mr. Barra's next book is "Yogi Berra, Eternal Yankee," due out in March 2009 from W.W. Norton.

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