![]() ![]() In Fichtner’s offense, so much of the passing game relied on Roethlisberger to read coverages and find open receivers. This is where new coordinator Matt Canada will play an important role. At age 39, he’s unlikely to get loose quickly. Hopefully, with a full season under his belt, he will acclimate quicker in 2021. The mental rust likely took a toll as Roethlisberger struggled to diagnose defenses early in games. It’s possible his slow starts in 2020 were a byproduct of the elbow surgery that ended his 2019 season prematurely. In fact, his career completion percentage is higher in the 1st quarter (65.5) than any other quarter while his 1st quarter passer rating (94.9) improves only in the 2nd quarter (96.5). Roethlisberger hasn’t always been a slow starter. ![]() Neither proved to be particularly effective. They frequently operated from the same personnel grouping and took one of two forms: either a run-run-pass sequence that often left the Steelers in 3rd and long or multiple consecutive passes, usually short throws from the shotgun, that relied on Roethlisberger to be decisive and accurate. Fichtner’s opening scripts were often unimaginative. Why did Roethlisberger, in particular, and the offense, in general, start so slowly last season? Former coordinator Randy Fichtner certainly played a role. Roethlisberger’s completion percentage improved similarly, from 58% in the 1st quarter to 65, 63 and 73% in quarters 2, 3 and 4. It increased to 104.5, 81.0 and 111.1 in subsequent quarters. His 1st quarter passer rating was just 72.7. Roethlisberger’s numbers reflected (and were in part responsible for) these struggles. Their 53 1st downs represented their lowest output per quarter as well. Pittsburgh had just 995 yards of total offense and averaged just 3.86 yards per play in the 1st quarter in 2020. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Steelers offense started games slowly last season. Here are some takeaways from those numbers and the insight they provide for the Steelers’ offense in 2021. By looking at PFR’s advanced numbers, we can really see where Roethlisberger excelled and where he struggled. Still, his shortcomings cannot be ignored. It can be easy to forget, given the way things ended, that Roethlisberger did a lot of things well last year. He completed 65.6% of his throws for 3,803 yards with 33 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. When we look at the numbers broadly, Roethlisberger’s season is respectable. But a host of issues (poor line play, a league-worst rushing attack, inaccuracy on the deep ball) conspired to doom the offense down the stretch, leading to an unceremonious playoff exit in the Wild Card round against Cleveland. ![]() Most of us know the general narrative by now - Roethlisberger returned from elbow surgery to emerge as an MVP candidate while piloting the Steelers to an 11-0 start. Over the past few days, I’ve been using the site to try to get a better feel for Ben Roethlisberger’s 2020 season. Their numbers range from the broad, such as yearly stats, to the very specific, such as air-yards-per-attempt for a quarterback or average-depth-of-target for a receiver. The folks at Pro Football Reference (PFR) do a terrific job compiling statistics that a football nerd like me can pour over while searching for information. ![]()
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