Loser: Ben Roethlisberger
Ben Roethlisberger has rightfully seen a lot of praise this season, but he easily had his worst performance of the season against the Titans. While Roethlisberger hasn’t been the usual gunslinger he was in past years, he was being smart with the ball and allowing his receivers to make big plays with the ball in their hands. The opposite happened this week, as Roethlisberger seemed to try and force more passes than usual.
While two of his interceptions can be attributed to tipped passes, his third pick was ugly. He tried forcing the ball around three defenders and the ball ended up in a defender’s hands. Likewise, a few of his earlier passes seemed forced; and while they didn’t end in interceptions, they were certainly tough to watch. He never seemed truly comfortable in the pocket, and it resulted in nearly a disastrous day for him.
The nail in his coffin was his inability to make plays deep in the passing game. While relying on the short game is fine, the Steelers need to be able to make plays deep as well. Roethlisberger has struggled there for much of the year, and those issues reappeared again this week. No, he doesn’t need to sling the ball constantly down the field, but he also can’t be wasting those opportunities. All in all, Roethlisberger struggled on the day, and had the team lost, he would have been a primary culprit.