Ben's prime years have been disappointing.

It's been 5 years now since Ben has played in a Super Bowl and 7 years since he's won a Super Bowl. We've had many debates on this board about whether or not Ben is elite. Maybe he's elite, maybe he's an upper tier franchise quarterback. But one thing is for certain, the last several years have been Ben's prime seasons and the Steelers haven't been able to sniff a Super Bowl. How many head coaches would give their eye teeth for a quarterback of Ben's abilities? The fact is, Tomlin has had one of the best quarterbacks of this generation and he's failed to get the team to the Super Bowl during Ben's best years. His coaching career has been marked by mediocrity, playing down to the competition and losing big games, many times to lesser opponents.

I'm not saying Ben's best seasons are behind him, but he's not getting any younger and his body has taken a beating. But I guess we can all be happy about the fact that Tomlin has had another non-losing season, huh?

 

You can blame Tomlin if you like but I am pretty sure I just saw BR throw a couple of interceptions. .Turnovers in this game was the difference between a W and a L

 

For me, Ben hasn't been disappointing... Tomlin has. Ben can't do it all when Tomlin continues to make boneheaded decisions game after game after game. Ben shouldn't have to try and play catch-up because Tomlin wants to play the game from his "gut." That's one of the stupidest things ever.

 

I don't disagree at all. Ben sucked it up today and he's lost much of the magic he seemed to have early in his career. But far too often Tomlin's teams have looked flat, uninspired and unprepared in big moments and that is on the head coach.

 

Ben has 7 INTs in his last 5 playoff games covering the past 7 years (this year included).

Hard to pin that all on Tomlin.

 

Don't you know that it's ALL Tomlin's fault?? Or maybe it's Arians. Or LeBeau? I can't remember.

 

Ben reminds me of Bradshaw who sometimes threw into coverage and had bad multi-INT games. A great D bailed out Bradshaw on those days and the same for Ben early on. Now the D is awful and he can't carry it on his own on a consistent basis.

 

Good thing we got rid of those characters because we are winning more games now

 

I am not going to argue about who is at fault because there are so many places to lay blame hehehe.. Last week we showed how to win against a pretty stout defense and we heard there were no halftime adjustments plus JPeezy had a word with this defense which was support to have been inspiring..

They looked flat because they were.. They played like crap again. They do this very often against bad teams and we have seen it time and time again. Coaching? Well it's indeed coaching and organizational deficiencies but not entirely on Tomlin.

 

It seems to me that Tomlin/Colbert/AR2 have given Ben all the weapons a QB could ever hope for. Ben had yet another multiple int game. It's hard to blame the coaches/fo when they given him all of those weapons. It seems to me that for a few years we took our shots downfield, but largely we relied on a ball control offense with high percentage passes. All of the sudden we've gone all Air Haley and it's bitten us in the ass on more than one occasion.

 

Bens apoog

Ws. Bens apologies after a game he should have clearly won is like hearing MT stating we well own this!!! Is getting real old.

 

Lack of talent on defense. I always thought it was a matter of lacking talent vs a matter of problem with scheme when Dick was here. I still believe it. The down years of Dick were brought on by poor drafting on defense.

 

The 3rd and 15 and 4th and 15 bombs near the end today were just asinine. It was like BA was back again or something. Then the empty backfield in the red zone with goal to go felt like the ghost of coordinator's past as well. Just too greedy.

 

The most disappointing thing about Ben is his lack of concern or his recklessness in wasting time outs. Wasting time outs can be the difference in winning or losing. As a vet, he must know this already...

 

Offense looks like they have no idea what the overall game philosophy is! They have so many instances where they come to the line and have to call the entire play with limited time!

What are they practicing? Why don't they have a simple call system for hostile crowds? The 2 TO's used that early in the 2nd half were the dumbest things to happen when you already know you're behind and these games come down to the last seconds all the time!

 

I was absolutely furious at the play calling on that last series. Why attempt those low percentage passes with the game on the line? And Martavis Bryant is a physical freak, but showed once again why he was a 4th round draft pick!

 

Not saying Ben is Favre-like in his status, but the Packers struggled too in Favre's prime years. Football is a team sport.

 

Bradshaw threw good passes into coverage. Ben throws bad passes into coverage. There is a big difference. Bradshaw was a better passer then Ben.

 

Here's the thing about Ben and you really can't dispute it.

He will be a HOF QB, but he was more successful early in his career than lately. When the Steelers didn't ask him to win games alone, he was more successful but when they've been more dependent on him, he really hasn't carried them too far. Stats are great but he will have missed the playoffs 3 of the last 4 years and his last 2 playoff games have been losses and he's played poorly. That covers 6 years. Hard to think of another elite QB on a relatively talent rich team with 6 years like that.

 

It makes me gag to think this but, this team is a bit like the early 80s Chargers. Like Ben, Fouts would throw for a ton of yards and points but would consistently throw a drive/game killing INT and had no defense to bail him out.

 

we wanted Arian out of pittsburgh several years ago and now look what he has done at Indianapolis and Arizona. I think most of the disappointment should fall on the players and especially Big Ben.

 

Part of the reason Ben prime years have been disappointing is his bonehead multi ints games.

 

This truly puzzles me to no end. How BB always snaps the ball with under 3 seconds pretty much every play (could be making last second reads of the D, but still...) and then a scrub like Mallet, who just joined that team a couple of weeks ago, takes his offense to the line and snaps the ball with 12-15 seconds left consistently - and makes plays - just is inconceivable.

 

Tomlin isn't doing Butler any favors by sitting Boykin and starting Blake... or by keeping the Jarvis Jones project going... or by cutting Keisel in favor of Cam Thomas etc.

Colbert has given very solid rosters to Tomlin to work with over the years.