The first strike came with 7:09 left in the third quarter, when Roethlisberger hit Chase Claypool on that 34-yard completion. Here, Claypool (who had been on a milk carton during the losing streak, catching just eight passes on 16 targets for 107 yards and no touchdowns in Weeks 13-15) ran cornerback T.J. Carrie up the field, maintained inside position, and Ben was able to make a great timing throw before safety Julian Blackmon converged from the deep third. Roethlisberger also did a nice job of looking Blackmon to the middle of the field before the throw.
Then, with 3:23 left in the third quarter, the 39-yard touchdown to Johnson. Cornerback Rock Ya-Sin did a pretty decent job of matching Johnson’s downfield speed considering that he had to recover from bail coverage and he almost fell down, but in the end, Johnson reversed his butter-hands narrative of late and laid out for a tremendous touchdown. A couple of neat nuances here — not only did Roethlisberger look off the safety again, but his pre-snap footwork indicated a quick back-side throw, and he reversed that after the snap to be in an ideal position for the deep pass.
Finally, the 25-yard touchdown pass to Smith-Schuster, who split safeties Tavon Wilson and Julian Blackmon on the play. He had help, though — Claypool motioned from the backfield to outside right, and his vertical route influenced Blackmon away from Smith-Schuster and his deep crosser from the right slot. And Johnson’s ability to run a convincing slant look to an inside cut on the other side forced Wilson to come down before he moved back up. So. there was a bit of play design involved here. Maybe we should give Fichtner and Canada some credit.
Maybe. Certainly a bang-on throw for a guy with no functional arm strength. Of the six deep passes Roethlisberger attempted, there were those three completions, and two deep attempts to Johnson that racked up pass interference calls adding 45 yards of functional offense. Not bad at all.
So, was this an open player revolt against restrictive play-calling like we saw from Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper against Scott Linehan in 2008, or from Bernie Kosar against Marty Schottenheimer in 1987? This, we don’t know. But if Fichtner and Canada want their offense back, they might want to follow their quarterback into the nether regions of the playbook.