The Pittsburgh Steelers managed to finish the 2019 season with an 8-8 record despite losing franchise-quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in Week 2.
Now, Roethlisberger is back, and with that comes intrigue about how the Steelers may finish in 2020. Pittsburgh nearly made the playoffs using an elite defense but poor quarterback play was too much to overcome. Will “Big Ben” be ready to step in and make an impact?
When recapping what he has seen so far in the Steelers’ training camp, Mark Kaboly of The Athletic made it clear that Roethlisberger with ‘some nice velocity’ and ‘his spiral looks as tight as ever.’
Roethlisberger threw the ball with some nice velocity, and his spiral looked as tight as ever even though Tomlin said a couple of weeks ago that Roethlisberger’s spirals weren’t as tight as he’d like them to be. That was an important statement because Roethlisberger’s injury affects the spin rate of the ball, and the spin rate determines how tight a spiral is, and the tightness of a spiral typically determines accuracy.
That sounds very intriguing, but wait…there’s more.
Kaboly also noted how Roethlisberger was ‘short-arming’ his passes later in practice when attempting to throw deep. The throwing motion reminded Kaboly of Philip Rivers–a quarterback known for not having a traditional follow through on passes.
It appeared to me — especially later in practice on some deep balls — that Roethlisberger was short-arming his passes. I would say that a good bit of his throw was a motion with which he did not follow through completely. It was sort of like a whip action. It reminded me a bit of Philip Rivers’ delivery.
The toll that an NFL workload takes throughout the course of a full season is not easy. For a 38-year-old quarterback working his way back from an elbow injury, it’s certainly something to monitor.
The Steelers may need to change things up from how their approach used to be with Roethlisberger taking shots down the field so often.
There isn’t a need for Ben Roethlisberger to carry the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense as a gun-slinger for them to be successful in 2020. It will be fascinating to see if head coach Mike Tomlin makes some adjustments, or if Roethlisberger simply works his way back into form.
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