Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, 38, is coming off an elbow injury that abruptly ended his season Week 2 of the 2019 season. The operation on the elbow of his throwing arm involved reattaching three flexor tendons.
It’ll be in the Steelers best interest to bring Roethlisberger along slowly. Even though he’s said that he’s throwing without pain, it would be foolish to expect a return to the 42 attempts per-game from 2018. On average, Roethlisberger has thrown 36 times per game since 2014.
“Being so, so focused on passing the ball has never been a path to success for the Steelers or really anybody else,” said Aditi Kinkhabwala, Steelers reporter for NFL Network, on Around the NFL. “Look at what the Titans did a year ago or the 49ers — you need a run game.”
Tennessee and San Fransisco were both balanced offensively in 2019. The Titans pass-to-run plays ratio was 448/445, and the 49ers was 478/498. Contrastingly, the Steelers had 510 pass attempts to 395 run attempts.
“Since the Steelers changed offensive coordinators from Todd Haley to Randy Fichtner, they haven’t shown much propensity to want to run the ball,” said Kinkhabwala, who has been covering the Steelers since 2012.
Fichtner comes from a passing-game mindset — his career has been spent focusing on QBs and wide receivers. Since he arrived in Pittsburgh in 2007, he’s been instrumental in the development of Santonio Holmes, Mike Wallace, Emmanuel Sanders, and Antonio Brown. So, it’s no surprise that Fichtner favors passing the ball to running it. But if the Steelers want Roethlisberger to remain effective in whatever time he has left with the team, they’d be wise to incorporate more rush attempts into the game plan.
The performance of the run game is obviously dependent on the performance of the offensive line, and last season the Steelers’ line simply didn’t play at the same level it did in 2018. The unit dropped eight spots from first to nine in the Pro Football Focus offensive line rankings.
Now-retired guard Ramon Foster accounted for 317 run plays in 2019 with a PFF grade of 52. Stefen Wisniewski, a free-agency signing this offseason, will likely start at guard this season. The most snap counts Wisniewski has taken since his rookie season (with the Oakland Raiders) was in 2017 with the Philadelphia Eagles when he was involved in 388 run plays with a PFF grade of 70.
While the level of involvement from fullback Derek Watt remains to be seen, the roster addition should help bolster the run game. In Watt’s last season in Los Angeles, he was part of 72 run plays with a blocking grade of 58.
Roethlisberger had a career year in 2018, as did his offensive line. If the line can return to ’18 form, it should speak volumes for running back James Conner, who put up his best numbers that same season.
But first, Fichtner has to make more of a commitment to integrating the diverse group of backs he has at his disposal.
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