6 Pittsburgh Steelers midseason awards in 2020
By Tommy Jaggi
Offensive player: Ben Roethlisberger
There were several candidates for this award. JuJu Smith-Schuster is having a solid season after a relatively slow start, and Chase Claypool has been thoroughly impressive during his rookie year. However, Ben Roethlisberger is certainly deserving of this award.
With the exception of a 3-interception game against the Tennessee Titans in Week 7, Big Ben has done a brilliant job taking care of the football this season. He’s not forcing as many throws into tight windows, and he has done as well as ever going through his progressions.
As a result, he has thrown for 18 touchdowns and just 4 interceptions on the season (a TD/INT ratio of 9/2). This is the best of his career so far, and with the way he’s played through the first 8 games, there’s no reason to think this can’t continue.
Though Roethlisgberger’s overall efficiency numbers are lacking and he hasn’t been as effective throwing the ball down the field as he has in years past, taking care of the football seems to be more important than the big plays. With the team already possessing one of the NFL’s best defenses, Ben is doing what it takes to win football games and he has been a massive improvement over Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges from a season ago.