“The Bucs blitzed Roethlisberger, and he burned them.” — Thomas Bassinger.

More from Mr. Bassinger at the Tampa Bay Times:

The Bucs spent the first two weeks of the season rewriting the rules about how the Bucs play football. The new Bucs jump on teams early. They score 50-yard touchdowns. They protect the football like DeSean Jackson protects his gold chains.

There was bound to be some regression. But no one expected regression all the way back to 2017. At least that’s what it felt like we were watching Monday night. A mistake-filled first half. A double-digit deficit. A furious comeback. And, ultimately, a letdown. Just like the loss to the Cardinals last season. And the Bills. And the Falcons.

The second half was fun, but it was largely noise. The game already had been decided.

The Bucs had only one deep safety, meaning that Grimes was one-on-one with Brown. If Brown beats Grimes off the line of scrimmage, it’s an easy touchdown. The problem is that Grimes flat out missed the tackle. Missed tackles were an issue all night long for the Bucs. They missed a season-high 10.

There’s more to that play than Grimes’ missed tackle: The Bucs blitzed Roethlisberger, and he burned them. He got the ball to Brown so quickly that the extra rusher didn’t even faze him.

When we talk about blitzing, we often talk about the rewards and disregard the risk. The Bucs haven’t been a high-percentage blitz team in recent seasons, and for good reason. They’re not particularly effective at it, and they could use the help in coverage.

Almost every defensive coordinator will tell you he wouldn’t blitz if he didn’t feel like he had to. He’d prefer to generate pressure with his front four linemen alone.

Veteran quarterbacks will exploit the open windows that a blitz creates, as Roethlisberger did repeatedly Monday. He was nearly flawless against the blitz, completing 10 of 12 passes for 162 yards and a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating, according to Pro Football Focus. He threw all three of his touchdown passes while being blitzed.

On Roethlisberger’s first touchdown pass, he diagnosed that the Bucs were in man coverage, and as soon as he saw linebacker Lavonte David rush, he dropped a pass into the zone David had vacated.

On his third touchdown pass, the […]

“What a crazy game! We will take a win any way we can get it. I am proud of the way the guys fought all the way until the end.” — Ben, on the field with Lisa Salter post-game.

From Bob Labriola, Steelers.com: Ben is Digest Player of the Week

Looking for their first win of the season, the Steelers figured to need a big night from their offense, which automatically means they were going to need a big night from their quarterback.

And Ben Roethlisberger delivered. He completed 30-of-38 for 353 yards, with three touchdowns, one interception, and a rating of 120.7. Roethlisberger also ran one quarterback sneak for 2 yards and another first down in the Steelers 30-27 win over Tampa Bay. Roethlisberger is the Steelers Digest Player of the Week.


You can read more from Mr. Labriola and check out all the highlights from the game, as well as Ben’s post-game interview here.



Ben Stats:

– With this win, Ben ties Dan Marino for the 4th most career games of at least 350 passing yards & 3 passing TD with 19.

– With this win, Coach Tomlin and Ben now have 107 regular-season wins together – tying Chuck Noll/Terry Bradshaw for most by a Steelers Head Coach-Quarterback, and for the third-most by a Head Coach-Quarterback tandem in NFL history.

– With this win, Ben has tied Joe Montana & Tom Brady for the third most career victories as a starting QB on Monday Night Football with 15.



Ben’s play was nothing new for Steeler Nation:





And check out those cleats!

Today, Ben announced the second grant award of the 2018 season from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation at The Giving Back Fund.

The Foundation will be distributing a grant to the Bradenton Police Department, located south of Raymond James Stadium where the Steelers will play the Buccaneers tonight.

The Bradenton Police Department will use the grant funds to purchase one fully trained dual purpose K-9 in order to expand their ability to remove illegal narcotics from the area. Their current K-9 unit consists of three K-9s and this grant will allow them to add the only drug interdiction and search and rescue K-9 to their team.

During the 2018 NFL season, The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation will be distributing grants to K-9 units of police and fire departments in the cities and surrounding communities of each regular season away game for the Steelers. The Foundation will also distribute several grants to the Pittsburgh area. This summer Ben invited police and fire departments across the country to submit proposals detailing their needs.

“This generous grant award will be used to purchase a new, fully-trained K-9 trained specifically in detecting narcotics and other harmful substances. Over the last several years, the City of Bradenton has unfortunately fallen victim to an unprecedented proliferation of opioid overdoses and deaths. Within the last year alone, the Bradenton Police Department has responded to 82 drug overdoses and nine suspected drug-related deaths.” — Chief Melanie Bevan, Bradenton Police Department.

This marks the 12th season that Ben’s foundation has distributed grants to K-9 units. His mission is to support K-9 units of police and fire departments throughout the United States, with a particular emphasis on support for working dogs in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation distributed more than $170,000 in grants to K-9 units around the country during the 2017 NFL season, including $82,000 in the Pittsburgh community. The Foundation has distributed in excess of $1.92 million since 2007.

“We’re very fortunate to be in the position that we are able to help these K-9 units. The work that is performed by the dogs and their handlers as well as the bond that is formed is incredible. We’re just thrilled to do our small part.” — Ben.

For more information about Ben’s Foundation or The Giving Back Fund, […]

“When you are the best in the world you want to help win football games. We’re all a little frustrated because we aren’t winning right now.” — Ben on Antonio Brown.

From Teresa Varley, Steelers.com:

Ben Roethlisberger knows what he has in Antonio Brown.

It’s pretty simple actually.

“He is the best in the world,” said Roethlisberger on Wednesday morning.

When you are considered the best by everyone around you, when you want to deliver for your team every game because you have such a passion for winning, a passion for perfection, you get frustrated when it doesn’t happen.

That’s exactly what happened with Brown on Sunday, when he was seen on the sidelines during the Steelers-Chiefs game arguing with offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner. It was frustration coming out.

“I just talk to him (when he gets frustrated), tell him to stay with us. He isn’t the only guy that gets frustrated in games. We all get frustrated. Like I said, when you are the best in the world you might get a little more frustrated than others. AB is a very passionate football player. We all know that. The fans know that. That is what makes him special, his passion for this game and the passion to be great. We’re not going to want to take that away from him. When he gets frustrated in games, just tell him to stay with me, talk to me, communicate with me, let me know if I missed you on something, if there is a way you are getting open and I didn’t see it. Let’s just talk and communicate and he does a great job of doing that.

“It’s early in the season. It’s two games in. Guys did some things the first game, we had some elements that didn’t let me get him the ball as much as I should have. Last week they put some guys on him, but other guys were open too. I am not worried about AB. He will be just fine.”

More from Ben:

Roethlisberger, who isn’t on social media, said he has encouraged teammates to stay away from replying to those who are trying to get a response from them, but Brown has the right to reply as […]

“I’m a better player because of A.B…I owe him a lot of my success. I’m not worried about where our chemistry will be.” — Ben.

Recap provided by 93.7 The Fan & CBS Pittsburgh:

Roethlisberger says while the team is angry and frustrated, he recognizes that it’s early in the season.

“You lose a game at home; you never want to do that. Obviously, you want to be perfect at home and make it really hard for teams to come play us at Heinz Field but really it’s early in the season. It just means we can’t go undefeated.”

Roethlisberger says AB will take his time to gather his answer and that whether or now Brown spoke yesterday, his teammates would still have to answer questions about it.

“He’s a competitor and he wants to be the best in the world and he probably is the best in the world and he wants to make every play and catch every ball and every touchdown, which is what every player wants to do. You know he took it out on some people and I give Randy [Fichtner] a lot of credit for not losing it on him but you know it’s just one of those things that I think in the heat of the battle and you’re losing the football game, it’s just tough on anybody.

“I don’t I think he just…it’s just another reason why I don’t do social media right? Guys get under your skin and find a way to do it,” said Roethlisberger. “I don’t think he wants traded. I’ll speak with him tomorrow and maybe I’ll have a different answer after that but I don’t think that.”

Roethlisberger says that a lot of the currently players only know social media and says “it’s hard to break habits and they enjoy using their platforms to reach fans and there definitely is some good that comes with it but I think if you’re going to do it you have to not get caught up in reading all the extra tweets . . . where you get in trouble is when you start responding to other people.

Roethlisberger says he doesn’t hear about most of the off the field and social media antics until later because he doesn’t have a social media presence.

“A lot of […]

“We had to score points. When you get in a hole like that you have to score points and score quick. It makes you run the no-huddle and throw the ball every play pretty much. I am proud of the way the guys fought to the very end.” — Ben.

From Teresa Varley, Steelers.com:

The Steelers dug themselves into a hole early, and weren’t able to fully get out of it, losing to the Chiefs, 42-37, at Heinz Field.

The Chiefs scored on their first three possessions to go up 21-0, while the Steelers offense wasn’t able to muster anything early on. Despite fighting back to tie the game, 21-21, and again, 28-28, they couldn’t hold off the Chiefs.

The offense started slow, but came to life late with Ben Roethlisberger completing 39 passes for 452 yards and three touchdowns. Jesse James, the Steelers Digest Player of the Week, had five receptions for 138 yards and a touchdown, while JuJu Smith-Schuster had 13 receptions for 121 yards.


You can read more from Ms. Varley’s recap here.

You can watch the video of Ben’s post-game interview here.


Ben Stat:

#7 passed Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway (his childhood favorite) for seventh all-time in career passing yards.