Steelers stat predictions: How will Ben Roethlisberger fare against the Giants?

Ben Roethlisberger will get a chance to silence a lot of critics early in the 2020 season. Here’s how the Steelers quarterback could look against the Giants in Week 1.

People really do not know what to expect in the upcoming season whenever it comes to Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. It may or may not take him a while to get back in the swing of things, however, week one against the Giants will be a great matchup for him to get started.

During the 2019 season, the Giants secondary ranked 28th in the league (out of 32 teams) in terms of opponent passing yards per game.  The recent signing of former Patriots and Titans cornerback Logan Ryan should help improve this defense, but not by a wide margin.

This is very compelling for a quarterback who, in his last full season, finished as the NFL passing leader with 5,129 yards. It is hard to say if Ben will match these numbers, or even come close to them, but letting him air it out against a poor secondary will put him in a good position to be the passing leader once again.

A big reason the Giants ranked so low against the pass has to do with the fact they were not able to get pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Coming in at 22nd in the league, the Giants had one of the worst pass-rushing defenses, only averaging a sack 6.08% of the time. This means the Steelers offensive line will get a good tune-up game to start the year after underwhelming play during the 2019 season.

How the Steelers QB will perform against Giants

As you could probably tell by now, the Giants defense is bottom tier, which is why I think Ben will have a pretty good game. To add salt to their already bad defensive wounds, they had no player rank in the top 100 in 2020 (this does not include their offense). Whenever a hall of fame quarterback faces a bad defense, good stat lines are usually the outcome.

I think Ben Roethlisberger will come out of the gate slinging it to prove he can still throw the ball in order to back up the Giant’s safeties. However, I do think the Steelers will more than likely put him on a pass count. Come the second half, the Steelers should have a large enough lead to conserve Roethlisberger’s arm and go to a run-heavy attack to chew the clock along and give James Conner some valuable reps.

My predicted stat line for Big Ben: 17-26, 240 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception

This is a reasonable stat line for the quarterback who has gone nearly a year without playing in a regular-season game. While Ben Roethlisberger could outperform these numbers in Week 1, it’s important not to expect too much from the Steelers quarterback out of the gate.