Is Ben on the decline?

We are 12/4 enough said.

 

NO!!!!!!!!!

 

I think Ben is fine. He's just really beat up and needs to get healthy.

 

if sanders can stay healthy throughout, we are a different offense. keeping him on the field for more than one game at a time has put added pressure on the other WR's and ben. he could make a huge difference to us. we need him for the whole PO run.

 

Before the high ankle sprain, I thought Ben was playing some of his best football this year. I really thought he had a chance at 4,500+ yards.

 

Hell no!! He's playing hurt. He really has a hard time planting that foot.(ankle) He'll be fine,once the season is over.Hopefully in February!!

 

Great points. I wish Ben would be more efficient like Brady, Brees, Manning and Rodgers. His frenetic style drives me crazy at times and quite honestly, the games where he has looked more Manning-esque, like the Patriots game this year, the Colts playoff game a couple of years back and some others, he has been very successful. In those games, he's getting the ball out fast to Heath or to the WR on the hot route and it usually opens up more big play opportunities later in games. I wish he were that kind of QB but as you said, he tosses the called play out the window and resorts to sandlot more often than not.

 

ben should be in the pinnacle of his career,but i feel his star is fading and fading faster than my bluejeans in bleach.

 

I agree, good points, but I think Ben is the perfect kind of quarterback for the city of Pittsburgh, the way he plays. (Hard-nosed, non-pretty boy, etc.)

Plus, his "sandlot" style is always the way those of us who never played the game ourselves imagined we would play to help our team win the Super Bowl in the closing seconds. (aka "Santonio Holmes")

 

I would take that bet - our O line is horrid. Brady would be out of football by now behind our line. This thread gets my goat. Ben is hurt - period. He has consistently been one of the top 5 QB's year in and year out. He is the 11th all-time in QB rating. You can't ask any more than that and it is more than enough to compete for Superbowls. He is missing the long throws because he cannot make a full weight shift due to his ankle. Plain and simple. If he was healthy, you would not see a drop off. Oh, and by the way, he isn't going to change the way he plays QB - he is a top QB because of the way he plays, not despite of it.

 

Ben isn't a fantasy guy who will put up spectacular numbers without sweating. Brady, Brees and Rogers don't take half the punishment Ben does every year. Ben won't compete with those guys for TD passes or passing yards.

However, we have the toughest QB in the league. Roethlisberger finds ways to win and in the end that's all that matters.

 

brain v brawn

 

Well ole Skip was trying to get him to write one. Haha

 

I think Ben is an awesome qb. I mean I named my son after him for crying out loud. That being said I just wish that he would maybe become a bit more "cerebral". When you watch Brady, or Rodgers, or Brees you get the feeling they know what is coming before they leave the huddle. With Ben he seems to come off like he is just playing sandlot football. But that is just his game and it has definitely worked for him. I just think we would all maybe feel a bit more comfortable if we thought he could disect a defense and make them look absolutely foolish. But NO I don't think he is in decline.

 

I also wonder how different his game would be if he didn't have to run for his life on almost EVERY PLAY.

 

no he is not on the decline true Steelers fans who know FB is whats on decline

 

Ben could put up fantasy numbers and he wouldn't have to play "sandlot" football with a great O-line. Don't get me wrong I love the way he improvises and plays "sandlot" football. But I can never help thinking of how much better he could be if he wasn't running for his life within 1 second of snapping the ball 1/2 the time. And if he was putting up fantasy type numbers because of a great o-line how many more superbowls could we have won? I would say at least 1, last year. If Kemoeatu doesn't get blown up like he forgot that he had to block on Ben's first interception does he throw an INT? I think not, in fact Wallace had his guy beat and I would love to believe that it could have been a long TD pass. Can you really put all the blame on Mendenhall for the fumble after he got hit 3 yards in the backfield? It looked like Legursky and Johnson forgot they actually had to block on that play.

The suspect line and the fact he has to run for his life half the time and was STILL able to get us to 3 SB's and win 2 of them, is what makes him a great QB. if our O-line was MUCH better, we would be talking about MVP awards for Ben as well as fantasy type numbers. With those numbers and the defense that we've had, I strongly believe more superbowl appearances and wins for the Steelers would have been had.

BLITZ

 

Hmmm. maybe cause the play that is called sucks? :FBAI!:

 

Edog... Isn't this in the wrong thread? This looks like a response to the thread about needing to be more deceptive. I think what you described above is BA being deceptive.

 

I like our QB a lot. As a fan, though, I do tend to be critical at times. And for Ben, the areas that I think he needs improvement are the following (however, please note that this is coming from someone who only wishes he was as good at doing ANYthing as well as Ben plays qb):

Field vision-- It just seems that Ben doesn't see some very open receivers on a pretty regular basis...it's like he's kind of made up his mind where he's going to throw the football before the ball is snapped and kind of zones in on making that play. Yes, he does do a pretty good job of looking safeties off and pump-faking at times, but I wonder if those are just attempts to go where he wanted to go with the ball to begin with. In other words, it's less reading the field and identifying who is open and more of trying to get the ball to a predetermined target.

Accuracy--More specifically, I mean that Ben doesn't seem very comfortable throwing the ball into small(er) windows. This is one of the reasons why perhaps he seems to perform so much better against zone defenses than man-to-man schemes. It may also be a reason for him holding the ball as long as he does--he's just not comfortable throwing a ball into small spaces, so he waits until there's more separation. Conversely, qbs like Manning, Brady, Brees, seem more comfortable with much smaller windows.

Now these may not be fair criticisms. And I actually do think that Ben has done better throwing against man-to-man, tighter coverages. But as a fan, you sometimes want it all--and quickly! heh.

Go Ben, Go Steelers!

 

I don't think that Ben is in decline. When he was healthy this year he was in rare form.

The problem is that with our offensive line and his style of play when we hit this point in the season he's always beaten to hell and back. So most of the dimished performance late in this season is due to injury not skill.

 

In the Cleveland game which he got hurt in, I remember thinking in that same quarter, just prior to the injury, how good he looked and our passing game looked. If you remember that game, we were moving the ball at will and fumbled it twice in the redzone (once by Heath, once by Hines). That is as crisp as I've seen our passing game (and the New England game) in a long time. Our offense has not been the same since the high ankle sprain. His play over his last two games is injury related, nothing else. There is no way Ben should have played in San Francisco.