How Ben Roethlisberger ‘went rogue’ and won the AFC North for the Steelers

Tired of a short passing game with minimal results, Ben Roethlisberger exhorted his teammates to have fun, and took over the playbook.

At the half of the Steelers’ Week 16 matehup against the Colts, things were as they’d been for a franchise that started the season 11-0, and then dropped three straight games. Coming into Week 16, the Steelers were guaranteed a playoff spot, but the AFC North was no sure thing, with the Browns breathing down their necks, and a Week 17 matchup between those two teams possibly deciding the division if things went south once again for Pittsburgh’s offense.

Again, at the half, that’s exactly what it looked like. Ben Roethlisberger had completed 11 of 20 passes for 98 yards, no touchdowns, and no interceptions, and once again, his spray chart had very little in the way of deep passes. That was an obvious negative trend during the losing streak, when Roethlisberger completed just four of 15 attempts of 20 or more air yards for 102 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 67.2. Whether it was the offense designed by Randy Fichtner and Matt Canada, or Roethlisberger’s own alleged inability to get the ball down the field, we were looking at the same old, same old… and the Steelers were looking at a 21-7 halftime deficit.

And then, in the second half, everything changed. Roethlisberger threw two deep touchdown passes — one to Diontae Johnson, and one to JuJu Smith-Schuster — and the Steelers managed to outscore the Colts 21-3 in the second half. That 28-24 win, combined with Cleveland’s 23-16 loss to the Jets, gave Mike Tomlin’s team its first division title since 2017. In that second half, Roethlisberger completed 23 of 29 passes for 244 yards, and three deep completions — two of which were touchdowns.

What happened to bring it all back? As Tomlin said after the game, it was about execution.

“We played better. We got open more. We made better throws. We protected better. It’s all a collective. We thought some chunk plays were there. We didn’t necessarily get them or capitalize on them [in the first half], but that wasn’t going to stop us. We weren’t going to be deterred. It was a critical component in terms of us getting back in the game. You’re not going to get back in the game three yards at a time when you’re down the way we were down, especially when you give up a field goal to start the second half.”

That all makes sense, but per Mike Silver of the NFL Network, something else was afoot — as center Maurkice Pouncey was tearing into his teammates in the locker room, Big Ben was exhorting his targets to have fun — and facilitating just that.

“As Pouncey was yelling, Big Ben was thinking,” Silver said. “Smith-Schuster told me, ‘Ben was great. The Colts’ defense was great early on. They were calling out plays they knew we were running. Ben’s mind is super-creative. He was calling plays in the second half that we did not practice — just pulling things from the past.”

So, “having fun” in this case was canning the short passing game over and over, and going with something more potentially explosive, There was certainly an element of predictability to that passing game before — only Matt Ryan had more dropbacks that resulted in slant or flat completions than Roethlisberger’s 97 going into Week 16, so it was evidently up to the quarterback to get out of the box as much as he was physically able.

Here’s how Bob Labriola put it on the Steelers’ official site:

One of the unfulfilled themes of the previous couple of weeks had been that the Steelers needed their stars to play like stars to pick up the slack created by the toll injuries had taken on the roster. They talked about it and talked about it, and then starting with the first offensive possession of the second half, Roethlisberger took the reins. It kind of happened in increments at the start – an 11-yard completion to Claypool, followed by a 34-yard shot down the field to Claypool – and even though that drive stalled with an incomplete pass on a fourth-and-goal from the Colts 2-yard line, Roethlisberger seemed to be feeling it.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2