Better Outlook From Today Forward: Ben vs. Joe

[feltdizz]

...and one other thing, their OL has been good but they also did a a lot of shuffling this year to try and get it right... and Flacco doesnt miss games. I have seen him take some big hits playing us but he is a pretty tough guy. Ben is tough as well but the injuries and hits have taken a toll and I fear he will never play 16 games

[supersteeler]

Comparing offenses to offenses, Ben Roethlisberger has had the worst supporting cast on offense of any top-tier QB in the NFL for the last five seasons. If you disagree with this statement, then you are wrong.

I would agree with that to an extent, prior to this year Ben did have the receiver corps playing pretty well with both Wallace and Brown having 1,000 receiving yards. Our issue whether its injuries or the players is our O-line not having continuity as they had to play musical chairs across that line, plus our running game.

Ben doesn't have an even playing field when he is compared to the top QB's, as they have a run game and O-line to work with. Remember, Ben was having one of his best years prior to all the injuries, even with no run game imagine him having both how good he can be.

Flacco was great in the playoffs and SB, but inconsistent in the regular season. If he can duplicate what he did next year on a consistent basis then he deserves to be mentioned with the best. I'll take Ben over flacco, we know what Ben is capable of with a supporting cast these other QB's enjoy.

It's tough to compare any players regardless of the position they play.
Example, Emmit Smith has the most rushing yards in the history of the game, but is he the best RB? I would say no, he had an all pro line to block for him which helped him get all those yards and played on a winning team. On the other hand Barry Sanders didn't have the same caliber of O-linemen that Dallas had but still was able to get the yards, many on his own ability.

[NJ-STEELER]

Sorry Pap but Flacco has been getting better every year... that logic works for the rookies but I dont buy it for Flacco. Seems like every yeqr we hear the "lets see what he does next year"

Give Flacco credit. If they go 9-7 next year what will it prove? The guy has a SB mvp, tied montana with 11 tds and no picks... and has an impressive playoff record.

I have a feeling it will be 9 year or 10 years into his career and a few fans will still try the "wait til next year" with this kid.

Their own FO might take that approach by franchising him this year

[Mister Pittsburgh]

No real use in arguing this. We got Ben for the next few years. I would strongly suggest trying to draft a QB in the 2 through 5 range to take a shot on and try and groom though because Ben has been injured the past two seasons for large chunks of the season and as I said earlier, those injuries pretty much were the back-breakers on the season. Batch and Leftwich should not be here next season.

[papillon]

Sorry Pap but Flacco has been getting better every year... that logic works for the rookies but I dont buy it for Flacco. Seems like every yeqr we hear the "lets see what he does next year"

Give Flacco credit. If they go 9-7 next year what will it prove? The guy has a SB mvp, tied montana with 11 tds and no picks... and has an impressive playoff record.

I have a feeling it will be 9 year or 10 years into his career and a few fans will still try the "wait til next year" with this kid.

Felt, here's the quote (below) in my post saying that exact thing about Flacco. I gave him all kinds of credit for his post season play, his regular season this year was average. I doubt we see him regress, but maintaining this level of play isn't as easy as it may seem, time will tell...

Joe Flacco has made positive strides as an NFL quarterback form year to year and now in his fifth year he is playing at a high level.

What will be interesting to see is after they give Joe that 100 million contract and the quality of player around has to suffer because of his contract and cap space will he be able to carry the team. Some think Boldin may already be a cap casualty and possibly Krueger, then the burden falls even more so on the quarterback.

Look at the Steelers, they stretched paying the piper for three years by restructuring and now the bill is coming due and many difficult cuts have to be made. The Steelers believed with their core (and rightfully so) players they had a chance to win Super Bowls, you can't foresee who will be injured and who won't. Now the players they relied on or at least some of them will have to released and/or cut. The same fate will hit the Ravens a few years down the road when you're paying one player 10% of the cap space and a handful of players chew up 40%-50% of the space, its what the NFL wants.

Pappy

[feltdizz]

I agree MP^^^

but let's be honest... 2 years ago 99% of the board wanted BA gone because he wasn't taking advantage of our awesome weapons at WR. Now all of a sudden these guys are bums in the "first year" of a new offense.

[Mister Pittsburgh]

Brown will go back out and run Wallace routes and do well. Sanders needs to take a step forward. We need an upgrade with more upside instead of Cotchery. I would consider Plaxico if he came back near the minimum as we need a WR that can be used sort of like a pass catching TE and situationally like in the endzone. Heath may miss a majority of next season. With that said, we will need to address TE in he draft.

[grotonsteel]

Maybe he Haley offense had something to do with the WR's taking a step back? It's their first year in a new offense and all of a sudden our WR core is trash. I think we need to give them another year before tossing them to the curb.

..and a WR fumbling is no different than a QB throwing a game ending INT or a RB fumbling in crunch time. It happens from time to time but it shouldn't define their career.

Problem is Mike Wallace is gone. He was the best WR of the lot.

Sanders well either cant remain healthy or just cant take a step forward.

AB84 had brain farts last season. Maybe it was the injury or the money. Hopefully he regains his form.

WR Corp of AB84-Sanders-Cotchery is not going to strike fear in opponents D. They need to upgrade it.

[grotonsteel]

.Anyways its not like Haley had a great system..Haley was way too predictable. DBs were just sitting on the routes and daring Steelers to throw deep. Obiviously no running game did not help. (Yet somehow Haley's system got Arizona to the SB with an older non mobile QB and 2 WR's but no RB at all and gave KC a top 5 RB with no WR's to speak of....but yeah...he is clueless....Rooney's have no idea what they are doing at all...BTW, i have read on multiple occasions where Kurt Warner who also has SB rings was singing Haleys praises).

Big Ben had every reason to question the play calling. I would have done the same thing. Maybe not in media but yeah i would be pissed off with rubbish play calling towards the end of the season games. (Yeah....would be a typical Ben move to question the playcalling when he was off to an MVP season with his best TD to INT percentage ever and his sack numbers were way down...which BTW, his injury was due to him holding onto the football and running around...just like last season).

I hope Haley and Ben work out things in this offseason but i would like to some more deep passes called in a game. (I would modify that to if Ben gets his head out of his butt and into a playbook and embraces what isn't going to go away we will have a solid offense and his career will probably be extended another 2 to 3 seasons giving him an additional tens of millions of dollars in earnings for his career)

Haley offence in KC was great one year. Yup one year. Guess who was the OC. Charlie Weiss. Regarding Top 5 RB well Steelers had 3 pro-bowlers on offense last season. So BA offense was great i guess. And what did Ben questioned?? Give more passes to Heath instead of UDFA RB??? Go more no-huddle?? Throw few more vertical passes??? Ben saved Haley's arse with out of the world 3rd percentage. Todd Haley neutered Mike Wallace. As i said if you think Todd Haley play calling towards the end of the season was out of the world well expect more 8-8 season. Even his own KC player (Brandon Carr) went on record that he knew what Todd Haley would do in that situation. Ben needs to learn new offense and its not easy at 31 but Haley himself need to start calling better games. As i said with better O-Line and running game play-action will come into picture.

Ben injury was a freak injury. He was not running around. If he threw the ball it could have been intentional grounding on 3rd down. In the hind sight he should have taken a penalty but taking a sack at that time was not a bad idea. Ben got injured on that play well tough luck i would say.

[feltdizz]

MW was our fastest WR... not our best IMO. Whoever runs the fly route will post decent numbers. Nate Washington made a ton of money running go routes. Put Brown in his spot and I think our WR core will be fine. WR is a pretty easy position to fill...