Calinger: Egos could lead to end for Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Killer B’s”
By J.W. Calinger
ISL Correspondent
Football, more than any other major sport, depends on team chemistry and a good supporting cast for even the most able leaders. While some quarterbacks, Tom Brady coming to mind, have been able to work with several different personnel groups, most teams are at their best when three skill players – the quarterback, featured running back, and featured receiver – form the core of a successful offense.
In the 1980s, for instance, the San Francisco 49ers had QB Joe Montana, RB Roger Craig, and WR Jerry Rice. In the ’90s, the Dallas Cowboys had “The Triplets”, namely Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin.
For the last few years, the Pittsburgh Steelers have had “The Killer B’s”, named for Ben (Roethlisberger), (Le’Veon) Bell, and (Antonio) Brown, and for the black and yellow uniforms, especially the throwbacks with horizontal “bumblebee” stripes. According to Pro Football Reference, in each of the last four full seasons, the Steelers’ offense has been ranked in the top 10 in yards, three of them in the top three,
and even with Bell not playing this past Sunday, the Steelers were fourth in yards in Week 1. Supported by an offensive line that’s excellent at pass and finesse-run blocking and talented second and third wide receivers, the Killer B’s have been phenomenal.
I’m not sure the trend is going to continue. Recent developments with the team have led me to consider that while the Steelers’ offense may keep chugging along, the Killer B’s might be stinging themselves as I write this and, with themselves, the rest of the team. Roethlisberger lobbied heavily for then-offensive co-ordinator Todd Haley to be replaced, and over the off-season, the Rooneys granted his wish. Haley became OC in 2012, and after two difficult seasons, he put together the offensive schemes that made the Killer B’s who they were – the Steelers’ offense never ranked higher than seventh in yards in Roethlisberger’s career, with any other OC. But, he got on Roethlisberger’s nerves, possibly because he wanted his quarterback to form some new habits, and definitely because he spoke to his signal-caller in a manner to which Big Ben wasn’t accustomed. So, he had to go.
Reports are that new OC Randy Fichtner, previously the quarterbacks’ coach, is a lot more willing to “let Ben be Ben” or, to put it another way, to let Roethlisberger play exactly how he wants. This potentially could be very dangerous.
In some ways, Week 1 was a poor measuring stick – a combination of factors that included the weather and Bell’s absence led Pitttsburgh to employ more power formations that made better use of RB James Conner’s abilities. Still, there were plenty of times during the game when Ben played his sort of game, the shotgun-spread, and he consistently found himself sacked or pressured against blitzes by the Cleveland Browns.
One of the sacks, with 7:44 left in regulation, resulted in a fumble the Browns returned to the Pittsburgh one-yard line, and a touchdown one play later cut Cleveland’s lead to 7. Thus the Steelers went from driving the ball, two scores up, to being in a more precarious spot. The Browns got another sack-fumble against him with 6:48 left in regulation, and yet another with less than a minute left in overtime, that
last one setting up a field goal attempt that might have earned the Browns the win had linebacker T.J. Watt not blocked it.
Despite the constant pressure, Roethlisberger continued to insist on five-wide sets that neither threatened a run nor allowed for a potential extra pass blocker in the backfield. Some max-protect sets, not to mention a little willingness to throw the ball out of bounds if necessary, or to throw timing passes, may have helped a great deal. Over the years, though, Big Ben has been vain and impatient, generally looking for the opportunity for big chunks of yardage when a simple first down would do, or when fewer wideouts in the pattern was a price worth paying for less risk of a potentially game-losing turnover.
Cleveland started blitzing, and Roethlisberger didn’t account for it, and the Steelers tied a game they very well could have won, had they ground out some more drives or even punted instead of turning over the ball. I note that Cleveland’s tying touchdown happened with just under two minutes left in regulation, and had the Steelers punted from where they were when Roethlisberger gave up the fumble, Cleveland’s ensuing drive probably would have taken more than two minutes.
Not every team has Roethlisberger’s former OC on the staff – Haley has that position in Cleveland now. But, if teams learn to blitz Big Ben against five- or four-wide sets they way they did in 2009, this could be bad news for the Steelers offense, especially if Ben refuses to adapt, which I think is going to happen.
Bell, of course, was conspicuous by his absence. He gave up roughly $800K by continuing his holdout, created because he didn’t want to sign the franchise contract the Steelers offered him, nor a contract which, according to CBS Sports, would have paid him $70 million over five years, including a $33 million signing bonus.
Of the Killer B’s, Bell may end up being the least missed. Second-year player Conner may have fumbled at a critical time in the game, but then, he also ran for 135 yards, averaging 4.35 yards per rush, and two TD’s. That’s better than an average game for Bell last season.
As I write this, Bell has made no known moves toward rejoining his team. He’s off the depth chart for the game against Kansas City, and the most news he made was being spotted in a Miami nightclub Monday night. With his actions, his co-workers are frustrated enough that they’ve been largely willing to commit a major no-no in any NFL locker room, by going public about their frustration with him, and the
fans largely have been posting messages like “Le’Veon who?” on social media.
Bell became a big name largely because of how he turned dump-off passes from Roethlisberger into big gains, which made him the first running back to whom Big Ben was willing to check down since Willie Parker or even Jerome Bettis. Personally, I think that quality was what gave him the workload he had, which in turn gave him perceived leverage to demand $17 million a year instead of the $14 million the Steelers offered him. Now, however, the Steelers probably will have him split time with Conner, especially since if he does come back, he probably will have to practice for at least a few weeks before he’s up to full form. Whether or not the Steelers trade him is uncertain, but it’s becoming more of a possibility at a point when he’ll be out of the game for at least another week and, at this point, may not be in game form until nearly halfway through the season.
Brown hasn’t done as much that directly affects his on-the-field standing, especially since the NFL changed celebration rules so that his post-TD theatrics no longer earn unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties on the ensuing kickoffs. His antics off the field have expanded to fill the void. Brown has done plenty to call attention to himself, from arriving at training camp in a helicopter to appearing on the cover of the latest edition of Madden, a move that has left the fans and, possibly, some of his teammates, with the superstitious worry that something very bad will happen to him this year.
According to Sports Illustrated writer Jesse Washington, Brown also has called a long-time Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter, Ed Bouchette, a racist for noting that Brown limped off the field in practice, and after Washington wrote an article that wasn’t flattering to Brown, Brown threatened violence in a Tweet. Brown since has apologized.
Again, these antics aren’t as extreme as Bell’s holdout or Ben’s failure to adapt to opposing defenses. Still, it doesn’t help when a player not only bullies a member of the press, not to mention when he makes those around him nervous by appearing on a video-game cover many fans believe is cursed – I’m not saying it’s cursed, but from a psychological point of view, what his teammates believe largely is what counts.
In Pittsburgh, Head Coach Mike Tomlin has a reputation for being unable to exercise enough authority over his players. While this may not directly affect Bell’s decisions regarding his salary negotiations, his inability to have Roethlisberger play more with Conner last season may have led Bell to feel worthy of the extra money he’s demanding. Tomlin certainly wasn’t able to keep Brown from twerking in the end zone even before the celebration rules were changed, and he couldn’t persuade Brown to take a little criticism from the press without threatening bodily harm or name-calling. As for Roethlisberger, Tomlin couldn’t talk him into dealing with an offensive coordinator who, I say again, made the Steelers a top-three offense in terms of yards per game, three out of the last four full seasons. Now Tomlin may have to clean up a bigger mess as a result, especially if Bell tries forcing a trade or if Ben continues to give up turnovers or even get injured because he isn’t conservative enough against the blitz. Fans may have to hope the defense, fifth in the League in yards allowed after Week 1, will bail out
an offense on which the Killer B’s are killing their own chances of winning, more than anything else.
