QB Ben Roethlisberger
Some of you are probably wishing I would have left this list at four players, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the obvious concerns about Ben Roethlisberger at this stage of his career.
Nobody is doubting the quarterback’s importance to the team. That is undeniable. However, I hate that fans try to use Ben’s touchdown-to-interception ratio to justify how good he was for the team in 2020. While he did do a good job taking care of the ball early in the season, it’s largely because he was not consistently passing the ball down the field. As for his touchdown numbers, these are obviously a bit inflated as the team could not run the ball.
Looking at Ben’s efficiency numbers, he was among the bottom quarterbacks in the NFL in 2020. According to PlayerProfiler.com, Roethlisberger was 32nd in yards per attempt, 28th in air yards per attempt, 36th in play-action completion percentage, 34th in red zone completion percentage, 31st in deep-ball completion percentage, and 33rd in clean pocket completion percentage. All of this equated to just being 22nd in total QBR last season – his lowest in 7 years.
Now at 39 years old, it’s optimistic thinking to believe that Ben will get better with age. New offensive coordinator Matt Canada could help, but I do think fans overrate Roethlisberger based on his future Hall of Fame reputation. This isn’t the same Big Ben we saw 3-4 years ago.
These five players will still serve very important roles for the Steelers in 2021, but there seem to be some unreasonable expectations on their shoulders. I would love to wrong about this, but I think it’s fair to assume that these players are currently being overrated.