Conner facing more "8 men in the box" than any RB in the league

According to Triblive, which quotes stats from Next Gen Stats. This surprises me tremendously, and speaks volumes about how much Def. Coordinators are starting to respect his abilities. Also means that there should be lots of one vs one opportunities for Big Ben to exploit downfield.

 

....and if AB is being doubled who is covering everyone else? If that's truly the case there should never be a reason to force the ball to AB.

 

Then why aren’t we doing better going deep?

 

Agreed. Hopefully Ben and Washington can start connecting soon.

 

Off the top of my head I don't really recall that many attempts and whichever ones there were Washington was the target and his timing with Ben seems to be off. It was the same situation with MB last year but I'm hoping it won't be a issue too much longer. Ben is big on trust so I think when in doubt he looks somewhere else. What has to happen is to give Washington a bit more flexibility in his assignments and going to him early can only help. At least it will give the D something else to think about. I'm can't see why Washington couldn't be effective on shallow crosses ....

 

Stop fiddle farting with JW and feed JJ.

 

Maybe Washington can help us beat Ravens soon...and.... Patriots. Until then I will fart into the wind.

 

I think that is a big part of it. Another part is that Roethlisberger has been struggling on the deep ball. Teams are going to play up until he starts making them pay more consistently.

 

....and we're still running the ball well. Here's that '35 Lead' play that I referred to in another thread. '3' means the tailback is getting the ball. '5' is the hole the play will be run thru..between the LT and TE. 'Lead' means the pulling OG leads the RB thru the hole while the FB kicks out the OLB.
Pic 1 shows #45 kicking out the OLB Jamie Collins #51. Pic 2 shows the pulling OG LEADING the RB thru the hole blocking #53 Joe Schobert who I think might be their leading tackler this year. Pic 3 Touchdown

 

Same

 

As Canadian cultural icon like Bubbles would say " This is getting really F*#KY"

 

Deep passes have always been low percentage plays. It doesn’t help that #7 has been way off for much of the season.

 

Correct, and why TE's are targeted about 10 times a game, with more to come.

 

he has, let's just hope he keeps that mental note in the forefront.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/10/10/ben-roethlisberger-pain-in-elbow-changed-mechanics/