What kind of team will this be on offense

[Shawn]

Good point Frank. And maybe I'm smokin the BnG crack pipe but I think the Steelers have a better shot at stopping the Pats then they have stopping us. We have 4 good DBs...Ike, McFadden, Townsend and Gay. We don't have a star at DB but we are fairly deep.

i forgot to include that in my post and it was actually my main point
who will they even have at cb? losing samuel was awful but losing gay on top of that is even worse. no team can rebound the year after losing your top two cb's. they can score all the points in the world and it wont matter. their d-line is still solid, but even at lb they are very thin. no more colvin and the stroke is a year older

Exactly...I think we match up really really well against that aging Pats D. I don't think the Pats can maintain their dominance this season. The Steelers are better...make no mistake about that. And honestly...a statement to the draft naysayers. What OL guys could we have drafted that would swing us into this competitive in one season? We can focus on the trenches next draft. Right now as we stand we are one of the teams to beat.

[ikestops85]

I agree that I don't think the O-line can support a power running game like we had in 2004 and 2005. I also don't think we can go pass happy ala the bengals. Again because the O-line just isn't good enough. What we need to do is something we are not known for ... become completely unpredictable. So while our O-line is not good enough to impose their will against other teams our offensive weapons are so good that we should be able to get away with running in passing situations and passing in running situations.

The problem I see us having in trying to run the offense this way is Arians. I'm certainly not sold on his play calling ... many times he leaves me scratching my head. For instance, why did he insist on running Willie up the middle so often instead of finding new ways to get him out on the edge. I love Willie but he's not a great power runner and he doesn't have a lot of shake n' bake. What he is excellent at is changing speeds and we all know he can flat out fly. It's Arians job to give Willie the best chance to succeed and in my opinion he doesn't.

The same applies to what Arians does to Ben in the 2nd half of games. The run, run and then pass on 3rd down mentality when we have the lead puts Ben in too many 3rd and long situations. We were lucky that Ben had a great year and many times was able to keep the chains moving in that situation. IMHO Arians could make it much easier for Ben and the O-line by not being so predictable. If none of our playmakers are having a great year stat wise but they are all having good years then I think this team could go far.

... and if I could ask for just one thing. When we are under 2 minutes in the game and the steelers are up by 2 points ... could we once, just once, run a play action and hit Miller deep down the middle.