Ben is not the main problem!

[Northern_Blitz]

Man, so much disrespect out there for Roethlisberger. I'll keep my fingers crossed he can dig down deep and find the fountain of youth...

Does M. Rudolph have to pull his sleigh into the stadium every week?

[feltdizz]

4th and 10 from the 11 yard line and Ben throws a F’n check down throw to Harris on the side with no blockers. Possibly the worst play of Ben’s career. He gave up. He looks afraid. He refuses to use the middle of the field.

Go back and watch the highlights - Ben has time on a lot of throws and takes sacks or can’t find a WR. He may be worried about the line but the second interception was flat out ridiculous and not the line’s fault.

Yeah.. Ben had time and WR’s either struggled to get open or Ben didn’t pull the trigger when they were open.

Its hard to see everything live but that sack where he had all day and refused to throw it away was inexcusable.

He also had another one where he should’ve thrown it away when we were close to the end zone.

Everyone is bad on offense right now.

Ben is definitely one of the main problems but he isn’t the only problem. OL and WR’s are also a problem. I expected the OL to take a few weeks to get it together but these WR’s have been trash this year too.

[NorthCoast]

4th and 10 from the 11 yard line and Ben throws a F’n check down throw to Harris on the side with no blockers. Possibly the worst play of Ben’s career. He gave up. He looks afraid. He refuses to use the middle of the field.

Go back and watch the highlights - Ben has time on a lot of throws and takes sacks or can’t find a WR. He may be worried about the line but the second interception was flat out ridiculous and not the line’s fault.

He's hovering around a 5% sack rate. If he has 600 drop backs this season that's 30 sacks. I'm thinking he won't make it through 17 games.

[The Man of Steel]

I know fans have no faith in Mason Rudolph however in his only start last season vs the Browns he went 22/39 for 315 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 int. I think that’s a pretty decent showing for a scrub.

[feltdizz]

I know fans have no faith in Mason Rudolph however in his only start last season vs the Browns he went 22/39 for 315 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 int. I think that’s a pretty decent showing for a scrub.

Some have said Cleveland wasn’t too worried and took their foot off the gas in that last game.

Personally, I think we looked much better with Mason than with Ben the next game vs Cleveland.

IMO I think most are comparing Ben from 5 years ago to Mason from 2019. I think Mason is boring and robotic but that might be what we need right now. I think Canada’s plays are faster than Ben’s mind right now if that makes sense. The ball should be coming out but Ben is waiting and hoping these WR’s make plays but they aren’t like AB who knew how to find spots once a play breaks down.

[Northern_Blitz]

I think one thing we don't know about re Ben is how much of the limitations of the offense are imposed by him. Either physical limitations or strong preferences / unwillingness to do things.

That's a questions we'll never know the answer to, but it seems like at least some of the scheme issues have carried over through multiple OCs.

Tomlin has been here that whole time too. I think it's more likely that he's leaving a big imprint on the D than the O, but it could be him too.

[Northern_Blitz]

Some have said Cleveland wasn’t too worried and took their foot off the gas in that last game.

Personally, I think we looked much better with Mason than with Ben the next game vs Cleveland.

IMO I think most are comparing Ben from 5 years ago to Mason from 2019. I think Mason is boring and robotic but that might be what we need right now. I think Canada’s plays are faster than Ben’s mind right now if that makes sense. The ball should be coming out but Ben is waiting and hoping these WR’s make plays but they aren’t like AB who knew how to find spots once a play breaks down.

I think it's true that we looked better with Mason in those two games.

But the playoff game was such a horror show that I think it's hard to get much more out of it than "we turned the ball over way to many times and that dramatically affected every part of the game".

We know that Ben is a high variance player (i.e. not super consistent, sometimes amazing, sometimes very bad). The comparisons to Favre have been around for ever. And like Favre, the bad games seem to be coming more frequently with age IMO.

[Monalo]

With this OL and Canada’s new offense, it seems to be physically too much for Ben at this stage of his career.
Defenses key on the RB and don’t respect Ben’s play-action, no time or footspeed to rollout and reset. Running a bootleg is out of the question.
Doesn’t seem to have the zip and accuracy to throw across the middle anymore. How many times has Ben hit a WR in stride this year?
Pre-snap reads and short passing game IS how Ben can be effective. That’s why it looks like last year’s offense at times.

I’m a huge Ben fan and hope we can turn things around. But it may be time for a more athletic QB for this offense.
I’d at least try Haskins when deep in the red zone, for the additional running threat.

[T.Ferguson]

He's hovering around a 5% sack rate. If he has 600 drop backs this season that's 30 sacks. I'm thinking he won't make it through 17 games.

I'll be surprised if he makes it through the season, not under this offense and o-line and his penchant for holding the ball too long at times. He's already banged up. In the end it's not going to matter for the team it's just a shame that this is how his career is going to end.

[NorthCoast]

I think it's true that we looked better with Mason in those two games.

But the playoff game was such a horror show that I think it's hard to get much more out of it than "we turned the ball over way to many times and that dramatically affected every part of the game".

We know that Ben is a high variance player (i.e. not super consistent, sometimes amazing, sometimes very bad). The comparisons to Favre have been around for ever. And like Favre, the bad games seem to be coming more frequently with age IMO.

But what we don't know is whether Rudolph would have thrown those early INTs in the playoff game. I'm thinking maybe he would have been smarter with the ball and this could have led to a completely different result. Tough to think about.

[Northern_Blitz]

But what we don't know is whether Rudolph would have thrown those early INTs in the playoff game. I'm thinking maybe he would have been smarter with the ball and this could have led to a completely different result. Tough to think about.

I do think the game would have been totally different.

I don't think Mason would have dug as big a hole.

And I don't think Mason is capable of scoring as many points as we did in the 2nd half.

And since Mason is sub-seven foot, that first snap still probably goes for a TD. And the odds of winning are bad when you give up a defensive TD.

[feltdizz]

I do think the game would have been totally different.

I don't think Mason would have dug as big a hole.

And I don't think Mason is capable of scoring as many points as we did in the 2nd half.

And since Mason is sub-seven foot, that first snap still probably goes for a TD. And the odds of winning are bad when you give up a defensive TD.

Mason is probably a but quicker than Ben without the ball.. I think he would’ve had a better chance of recovering it.

Even if he didn’t, I doubt he throws 4 INT’s. Might have four 3 and outs to start the game but who knows what would have happened.

We know what actually happened and for some reason we all fell for the hype because Ben threw a few TD passes against Detroit.

Northcoast warned us not to get our hopes up because it was the Lions but we wanted to believe Ben still had one last go.

Dan Patrick said every year we hear about Ben being in the best shape of his life.. but all he really does is shave his beard, lmao.

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

In a perfect scenario like you said, if you hide SOME OF BEN'S fault's but you can't hide his decision making when he does have time in the pocket. He's making bad reads, bad decisions. a good O-line can't hide that. He's just done. And he's mostly a sitting duck back there as well.

I disagree.

I don't think that you can evaluate anything without at least an average line. Can Ben make better reads if he has time? I don't know. Can he throw a dart down the middle if he has time? I don't know. Right now he is simply playing self preservation QB, and the difference between this year and last is that he is getting hit this year anyway.

With a decent line up front, the QB has more time. The RB has room to run, play action can be set up. Receivers have a chance to get downfield and gain separation. All the questions we have about this offense - Can Ben still play? Can Ben make good decisions? Is Najee a bust? Can the receivers gain separation? Can anybody catch? Can Canada do anything creative? Are Ben and the receivers on the same page? - All of those questions can only be answered once the line can at least do a decent job.

[NJ-STEELER]

I know fans have no faith in Mason Rudolph however in his only start last season vs the Browns he went 22/39 for 315 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 int. I think that’s a pretty decent showing for a scrub.

after 3 quarters the team scored 3 FGs. he also threw a pick on our side of the turf that ended with a brown's TD. look up the JAx playoff game posts on here to see how bad that really is.

against a team that seemingly played vanilla offense all game judging by how the D was mesmerized watching that brown's offense plow right thru us the following week

I'm sure hoping he can be the guy but from whati've seen, I wouldn't bet on it.
there's guys workig for UPS right now that have played in preseason games and looked better then what mason has showed us

[T.Ferguson]

But what we don't know is whether Rudolph would have thrown those early INTs in the playoff game. I'm thinking maybe he would have been smarter with the ball and this could have led to a completely different result. Tough to think about.

I seriously doubt the outcome would've been any different. First, I don't think Rudolph is even that good to begin with, he's a fine backup but starter material I have serious doubts about.

Second, the entire team was awful in this game, that first half was literally one of the worst team performances I've seen in a playoff game. The defense was so bad it's like they didn't want to be out there playing.