With Big Ben coming off a mediocre year and Fast Willie eager to produce even more, stealing a few pages from an old coordinator's playbook make sense ...
Friday, September 07, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Where's Ron Erhardt when you need him?
Erhardt is the guy who wrote the Steelers' playbook in 1992 when rookie coach Bill Cowher hired him as his offensive coordinator. It was the book the Steelers lived by for most of Cowher's tenure, although Erhardt's many successors were free to make changes and sometimes did.
Erhardt, in case you missed most of the previous 15 seasons, was an ardent proponent of running the football.
With Cowher gone and replaced by Mike Tomlin, new offensive coordinator Bruce Arians has either rewritten or thrown out the work of his predecessors. The Neanderthal football of Erhardt is in the process of being replaced with flash and pizzazz. The formation that for so long was the staple of Steelers' success -- a fullback lined up in front of a running back -- could be in the process of being phased out. You'll see four wideouts on first down, you'll see three tight ends on the field, you'll see a tight end replace the fullback and you'll see no fullback.
It reached the point that fullback Dan Kreider, for so long a symbol of the team's running success, was fighting for his job in training camp. What's so unusual about that is Kreider was the only pure fullback on the team. If speculation was correct, the Steelers were at least thinking of going without a fullback on their roster. Disciples of Erhardt would call that blasphemy.
Starting running back Willie Parker so much as called it bad football in a public plea to have Kreider regularly lined up in front of him.
The offense that for so long believed the best way to handle the opposition was with a figurative punch in the mouth now is placing the emphasis on deception. What it looks like we have here, as the Steelers ready for their season opener with the Cleveland Browns, is another love affair with the passing game.
Oh, to be certain, all the important players in this minidrama are pledging allegiance to the run, and that includes Arians, who has stated he wants to develop more the considerable skills of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, while at the same time retaining the team's run-oriented style. Trying to do that should be one of the interesting sidelights of the season.
It's understandable Arians wants to give more opportunity to Roethlisberger, whose performance in the three playoff games before the team's Super Bowl championship were guaranteed to make an offensive coordinator drool. But let's take that a step further, actually a year further. The brilliance that Roethlisberger showed in the 2005 postseason all but vanished last season when he threw 23 interceptions and had a passer rating of a submediocre 75.4. If that's the Roethlisberger who shows up this season, he's not the guy you want as the focal point of the offense.
By comparison, Parker rushed for 1,494 yards last season, third best in team history, exceeded only by Barry Foster in 1992 and Jerome Bettis in '97. Parker was the sixth-leading rusher in the NFL and third best in the AFC. By comparison, Roethlisberger's passer rating was 25th in the NFL and 10th in AFC.
Which player would you want as the hub of your offense?
The Steelers' lack of success when emphasizing the pass is well known. In the two seasons during the Cowher era when the quarterback threw for the most yards -- 2003 and '06 -- the teams had a combined record of 14-18. Needless to point out, that was highly out of character for the hugely successful Cowher era.
So why emphasize the quarterback this season?
It's not like Roethlisberger has a brilliant receiver corps. The only proven receiver is Hines Ward and, at 31, he is entering his declining years. Santonio Holmes, the other starter, has a large upside but whether he can mine that potential remains to be seen.
Better still, why emphasize the tight end? For all his exceptional promise, Heath Miller caught 34 passes last year, which is OK but hardly reminiscent of Kellen Winslow or Tony Gonzalez. Miller tied for 18th in receptions among NFL tight ends. Either he wasn't getting open or Roethlisberger was ignoring him. Third-round draft choice Matt Speath, like Miller a large target, caught 109 passes in his career at Minnesota, including 47 as a senior.
So what the Steelers have is a quarterback coming off a bad season and ordinary receiving corps and a running back who in only two seasons as a regular already has the third- and seventh-best seasons in franchise history.
Sounds like an offense Ron Erhardt would love. If only the Steelers would run it the way Erhardt would have.
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