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Ben Roethlisberger is shredding the defense. Play after play, rep after rep, the outcome is the same:
Snap. Drop back. Touchdown.
A pass to Antonio Brown in the middle of the end zone. A run up the gut by Deangelo Williams. A run off left tackle by Le’Veon Bell. A pass to Martavis Bryant in the corner of the endzone.
Snap. Drop back. Touchdown.
This Steelers offense is good. So good that Roethlisberger has said that he expects the team to put up 30 points every game. At least, that’s the goal.
“Unless we score every single time we have the ball, we [leave] points on the board,” he says. “We had a pretty good year last year, but that was last year. So like I said, we just have to work our butts off to be the best that we can be.”
How good can this offense be? Guard David DeCastro explains it rather simply.
“The sky’s the limit, really,” says DeCastro, one of Roethlisberger’s primary blockers. Once much-maligned, this offensive line blossomed last year into a unit that gave Roethlisberger and the Steelers running backs room to operate. That offense gained nearly 5,000 yards, and Roethlisberger threw a career-high 32 touchdowns.
By the look of the offense on this day at training camp, the sky is indeed the limit. And as the Steelers offense goes, so should the team this season.
But there’s a slight problem.
The defense being dismantled on this day also belongs to the Steelers. Once dominant, the defense transitioned in recent years from a Steel Curtain that stops everything to a bend-don’t-break-unit that tried to at least stop the big plays. And most weeks last year, it didn’t even do that. That defense was more like a dollar-store camp chair trying to support the weight of Casey Hampton — more often than not, it gave way.
There were changes in the backfield. Long-time defensive coordinator Dick Lebeau, whose defenses had lost their edge and become increasingly easy for offenses to figure out, left for the Tennessee Titans (and not, most watchers agree, of his own volition). Gone also are defensive stalwarts Troy Polamalu, the aging safety who had once done things in an NFL secondary that you couldn’t even do in a video game, and Ike Taylor, a cornerback who for years was able to earn a starting job because of his coverage capabilities despite near-invisible interception numbers. Add to that the loss of Brett Keisel and the shocking retirement of linebacker Jason Worilds, and the Steelers are left with a young defense with a lot of question marks.
In the team’s third preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, for example, Aaron Rodgers made the Steelers’ starting 11 look foolish at times. Receivers were left wide open. Running backs were allowed safe passage into the open field. It didn’t look like a Steelers defense. Hell, at times it didn’t even look like a mediocre Quad A WPIAL defense.
There were bright spots, though. James Harrison sacked quarterback Rodgers for a safety, and the Steelers tallied five more sacks on the Pack’s back-up squad. But while there were bright spots, there was still plenty of room for concern.
“Defensively, we warmed up … which we can’t afford to do,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said after the game. “You don’t always get the opportunity to warm up in our business.”
The offense, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to need much time to get things going. Against Green Bay, even though the Steelers didn’t score until the second quarter, Roethlisberger appeared to move the ball pretty well.
His main target was Antonio Brown, a receiver who showed signs of being a superstar in 2013 and cemented it last year with nearly 1,700 yards and 13 touchdowns. In very limited action, Roethlisberger hit Brown for four catches as well as a 58-yard touchdown pass that was negated on an offensive pass-interference call.
Brown looks faster than ever, and even in the preseason, his route-running looks smooth and deliberate. He might be the most important person to the Steelers this year, for both his on-field performance and as the emerging face of the franchise off the field. The Steelers have been criticized in recent years for diverging from the so-called “Steelers Way.” The team signed players with troubled pasts, and kept players, like Roethlisberger, despite serious off-field distractions. The recent signing of backup quarterback Michael Vick is just the latest example. (See related story, page XX.)
At training camp this summer, Brown’s was the name the fans were screaming. He’s the one they most come to see. In fact, during practice he spent time playing to the crowd, getting them to cheer even more.
His value to the team is immeasurable, but it’s his play in concert with Roethlisberger and tailback Le’Veon Bell that will carry the offense this year. The trio is being hailed as one of the NFL’s premier triple threats.
“We have Le’Veon, Antonio Brown and Ben Roethlisberger,” says tight end Heath Miller. “That’s three good pieces to start with.”
And the offense isn’t content to match last year’s success. The goal is to exceed it.
“I think that we can be a lot better than we were last year,” says Bell, a phenom in his rookie year with more than 1,360 yards and eight touchdowns. “There were a couple of games last year where we were not as consistent, or we didn’t start as quick, or we hurt ourselves with penalties and turnovers.
“I think this year, our main goal is to make sure that we are consistent. If we go out there and be consistent, we have guys all over the field that can make plays, so I think we can light up the scoreboard.”
At the beginning of the season, they’ll have to do that without Bell, who was suspended for the first two games after the police found marijuana in his car during a traffic stop last year. Former Carolina Panther DeAngelo Williams, a big, strong contrast to Bell’s speed, will start in his place.
The offense took another hit on Aug. 27 when second-year wide receiver Martavis Bryant was suspended four games for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. According to ESPN’s Ian Rappaport, Bryant’s suspension is for “multiple failed marijuana tests.” In his rookie campaign, Bryant racked up more than 525 yards and scored eight times, and was expected to have a breakout year. That means more work for No. 2 receiver Markus Wheaton and a big opportunity for rookie wideout Sammie Coates.
But in order for those guys to be good, the offensive line has to hold strong. A big part of that line was shattered in the Green Bay game, when center Maurkice Pouncey broke his left fibula. He’ll miss a lot, if not all of the season. That means center duties will fall to backup Cody Wallace. As insurance, the Steelers signed former offensive lineman Doug Legursky, who filled in for Pouncey when he was out in 2013.
“We have to count on whoever is going to step up their game to match the level of intensity Pouncey brought,” Roethisberger says. “He was downfield every play, and that’s what makes him special. People always talk about how often he is injured, but that’s just him being in the play. He’s always around the ball because of his intensity.
“There aren’t too many linemen trying to block safeties for their running back. That speaks for his desire to be the best.”
Another group working to get to its best is the Steelers defense. Former linebackers coach Keith Butler has taken over for LeBeau and will be expected to quickly turn around a young defensive unit. And while some would expect a learning curve, Tomlin says otherwise.
“I don’t grade on the curve. I don’t take present circumstances into the equation,” Tomlin says. “The standard is the standard, and we expect our guys to play good, dominant defense, regardless of who they are.
“We have a young group, and we’re trying to instill hustle and physicality into their mindset.”
There are still veterans on this unit, like William Gay, Will Allen, Cortez Allen and James Harrison. But since 2011, the Steelers have been drafting guys to take over for aging stars now no longer with the team, players like Hampton, Keisel, Polamalu and Taylor. It’s time for guys like Cam Heyward, Jarvis Jones, Shamarko Thomas, Ryan Shazier and rookie linebacker Bud Dupree to step up and start playing at a high level.
The players say that change is coming.
“I think we’re getting better. We’re taking small steps every day at every position,” says safety Will Allen. “There’s always room to improve.”
“You’re starting to see guys buying in to what coach Butler is preaching. Guys are putting forth the effort and not complaining. Once you see guys putting in an effort, you know we have a chance to get better. We have the athletic ability and the talent. Now it’s about correcting our mental errors and getting more consistent.”
Allen is third on the depth chart behind last year’s free-agent acquisition Mike Mitchell and Thomas, a 2013 draftee and the player many see as the heir apparent to Polamalu. Even though they no longer play together, Thomas says he’s still turning to Polamalu for advice.
“I texted Troy a couple days after the Jaguars game and he was telling me, ‘Just do your job and everything will just fall into place,’” Thomas said after the Green Bay game. “The inclination is to be like Troy. And you want to go out there and make big-time plays, but I just have to do what I do, and Troy’s right, things are falling into place.
“I think we’ve progressed a lot since the beginning of training camp. We have a little more work to do, but the chemistry is there, the communication is there. We’re coming along.”
That showed late in the Green Bay game when the defense was getting to the quarterback and to the ball, Jones says. That performance is a sign of marked improvement.
“Coach Tomlin challenged us to get to the quarterback and to make explosive plays,” Jones says. “Guys did it. They were flying around and making plays.
“We’ve got plenty of room to improve. We’ve got a lot of young guys in here, but we’re starting to gel together. There’s a lot of work to be done, but we’ve got a special group and we can get a lot of things done this year.”
There’s no question that the raw talent of this defensive unit is there. The only question is whether the players can pull it together in time to make a splash this year. Because while the defense may be young, the goals of this entire team is as old as the franchise itself.
“We’re the Steelers,” Thomas says. “Our only goal is to win the Super Bowl. That’s our expectation — nothing short of that.”
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2015.
