Earlier than the Pittsburgh Steelers offense bought going Sunday afternoon, they spent a lot of the primary 25 minutes going backward. With penalties and sacks, the offense struggled to seek out traction regardless of the Las Vegas Raiders’ middling protection that was hampered by accidents. The largest eyesore of all of them was the Steelers’ failed trick play halfway by the second quarter. In concept, RB Aaron Shampklin was imagined to take the toss, pitch it to TE Pat Freiermuth, pivoting in direction of him, and Freiermuth pitch it again to QB Justin Fields, who would take a shot to a wide-open receiver downfield.
As an alternative, Fields obtained the pitch and was promptly crushed by Raiders LB Divine Deablo for a 13-yard loss. As an alternative of an enormous play, the Steelers stalled their very own drive, ending with a punt.
Weighing in on the play, QB Ben Roethlisberger says it was the unsuitable time for the Steelers to make that decision. And somebody ought to’ve stopped it.
“It’s a play that you simply most likely want slightly extra time on,” Roethlisberger mentioned on the newest version of his Footbahlin podcast. “You don’t essentially desire a crew blitzing on. That’s a scenario the place I might assume that, that you simply wish to both have a pair issues occur. You wish to have a quarterback or the flexibility to say to kill it. ‘Kill, kill, kill, kill.’ Which implies that craziness is off. We’re gonna now simply hand it off and run it. That’s what we might do on flea flicker or a play.”
Right here’s a have a look at the play. Whereas some Raiders’ gamers stepped up, the nook overlaying WR Scotty Miller wasn’t fooled and stayed step-for-step with him, creating, at finest, a jump-ball alternative with a small receiver. However none of that mattered. Deablo made a bee-line for Fields, nailing him proper after he obtained the ball.
As our pre-game scouting report famous, the Raiders are a heavy blitz crew, particularly on second down. They confirmed an aggressive look right here that may have been extra of a run blitz, nevertheless it was nonetheless not a good look to offer Pittsburgh time to make the play work.
Roethlisberger says if not a verify on the line of scrimmage, Mike Tomlin ought to’ve referred to as timeout and prevented the catastrophe.
“You’d like your coordinator to be yelling at Coach Tomlin, ‘Name timeout. This doesn’t look good.’”
The sack was compounded by a delay of recreation the next play, turning 2nd and 10 on the Raiders’ 46 into third and 28 on the Steelers’ 36. Even that play, a short-designed display screen/drag to WR Calvin Austin III, fell incomplete, forcing a punt.
These calls are at all times results-based. In the event that they work, because it did for the Detroit Lions at almost the very same second, they’re celebrated for a gutsy and genius determination. If not, you’re carrying the dunce cap within the nook. However Roethlisberger’s level is well-taken: if the play out of the huddle seems prefer it’ll finish in failure, bailing on the decision is best than snapping and hoping for the very best.
