Fat, Beard Man Throws an Oblong Object to Athletic Humans

[bigben07MVP]

4 hours ago, FourThreeMafia said:

Need Conner to stay healthy, though.  That and our run blocking is my primary concern.  Without that, Ben will be FORCED to pass more, and I dont trust Randy Fitchner at all.

Don’t forget that when we lost Ben last year we basically lost our OC as well. Fitchner is Ben’s puppet and was exposed last year when asked to be a true OC and design an offense. Ben will call the majority of the plays this season. Fitchner leaves when Ben leaves and Canada takes over as OC is my prediction.

[bigben07MVP]

 

[Chieferific]

I suspect we'll get a really good look at Mason this Pre-Season. They're not gonna overwork Ben in practice or Pre-Season games. He'll just need to knock some rust off.  Hopefully that won't take long.  That leaves a lot of reps for Mason.  Given that, I think this will be the year they find out if they have anything other then a Backup in him.    

[MOSteelers56]

2 hours ago, Chieferific said:

I suspect we'll get a really good look at Mason this Pre-Season. They're not gonna overwork Ben in practice or Pre-Season games. He'll just need to knock some rust off.  Hopefully that won't take long.  That leaves a lot of reps for Mason.  Given that, I think this will be the year they find out if they have anything other then a Backup in him.    

I could see Ben not playing any preseason games honestly. I’m it sure I’d disagree with the team if they did it. His arm needs to be built back up slowly. I expect him to be pretty solid by our bye. I think we see a pretty conservative offense at the beginning of the year. Hopefully the o-line and RBs bring their big boy pants this year. We’ll need to control some TOP early to allow Ben to get built back to full strength.

[turtle28]

On 5/19/2020 at 11:34 PM, bigben07MVP said:

Don’t forget that when we lost Ben last year we basically lost our OC as well. Fitchner is Ben’s puppet and was exposed last year when asked to be a true OC and design an offense. Ben will call the majority of the plays this season. Fitchner leaves when Ben leaves and Canada takes over as OC is my prediction.

So, I have to disagree here. I'd say it's more that Rudolph & Duck aren't NFL level starting QBs, heck you can even argue they aren't back up level QBs. I bet if the Steelers had even an avg vet back up last year that their passing game would’ve been average and thus, their running game would've been a lot better as well and they would’ve made the playoffs.

Blaming the Offensive coordinator seems a bit ridiculous, the blame should go to the backup and who frankly sucked.

Any offense that loses an elite QB and then goes to a poor back up is going to see the offense struggle incredibly.

Just for an example, I remember a decade ago when people hated Arians and since then Arians has not only proven to be a good offensive coordinator but a good/arguably great head coach. 

Edited May 28, 2020 by turtle28

[MOSteelers56]

37 minutes ago, turtle28 said:

So, I have to disagree here. I'd say it's more that Rudolph & Duck aren't NFL level starting QBs, heck you can even argue they aren't back up level QBs. I bet if the Steelers had even an avg vet back up last year that their passing game would’ve been average and thus, their running game would've been a lot better as well and they would’ve made the playoffs.

Blaming the Offensive coordinator seems a bit ridiculous, the blame should go to the backup and who frankly sucked.

Any offense that loses an elite QB and then goes to a poor back up is going to see the offense struggle incredibly.

Just for an example, I remember a decade ago when people hated Arians and since then Arians has not only proven to be a good offensive coordinator but a good/arguably great head coach. 

The only thing I’d disagree with is calling Rudolph barely a backup level player. He definitely played that way last year, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. There were a lot of things in his way. Our skill position players couldn’t stay healthy, and just as he was starting to get his feet under him he got his head bashed twice(once by Garrett and the other on that hellacious shot he took extending the play).

[turtle28]

1 hour ago, MOSteelers56 said:

The only thing I’d disagree with is calling Rudolph barely a backup level player. He definitely played that way last year, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. There were a lot of things in his way. Our skill position players couldn’t stay healthy, and just as he was starting to get his feet under him he got his head bashed twice(once by Garrett and the other on that hellacious shot he took extending the play).

Everything I’m saying to that is based off of last year. That’s all we have to go off of. You can claim that it’s bc of the offensive coordinator, but we all know NFL teams generally go as well as the QB goes. It’s also true that the skill position players were dropping like flies, so as with Rudolph and not performing well, you also can’t blame the offensive coordinator for those same issues. I mean, you can’t replicate Juju Smith and last year the Steelers couldn’t replicate the production they had when they lost Conner too, which is understandable. So, I find it hard to blame the offensive coordinator for the O taking a step back given they lost their 3 most productive offensive players Ben, Juju & Conner throughout the season.

[MOSteelers56]

2 hours ago, turtle28 said:

Everything I’m saying to that is based off of last year. That’s all we have to go off of. You can claim that it’s bc of the offensive coordinator, but we all know NFL teams generally go as well as the QB goes. It’s also true that the skill position players were dropping like flies, so as with Rudolph and not performing well, you also can’t blame the offensive coordinator for those same issues. I mean, you can’t replicate Juju Smith and last year the Steelers couldn’t replicate the production they had when they lost Conner too, which is understandable. So, I find it hard to blame the offensive coordinator for the O taking a step back given they lost their 3 most productive offensive players Ben, Juju & Conner throughout the season.

I agree. I don’t think a Fitchner is a great coordinator by any means, but the blame for last years offense isn’t  solely on him. There were a lot of problems plaguing the offense last year. I think the main was not having Ben. 

[Chieferific]

Let's be real... Our OC this year is Ben. I just hope he's "smart" enough to not call 40-50+ Pass plays for himself a game.