with a ‘stop by’ to say hello to Brett Keisel at his Annual Pheasant Hunt:




And another episode of his radio show:

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger joined The Cook and Poni Show on Sportsradio 93.7 The Fan for the #1 Cochran Ben Roethlisberger Show and said Martavis is looking good and back in his old spot.

“I thought he had a good practice yesterday and I’m sure he’s excited for the second half of the season.” When asked if he was operating with the starters right now, Ben said “Yes, he was yesterday.”

Looking at his role in the offense after Juju Smith-Schuster’s breakout game against the Lions, Ben said there won’t be a whole lot of change in where Martavis lines up, but could you see Juju take some of his snaps outside of the slot in Martavis’ normal role.

“I think Martavis’ spot is where it always has been, it’s outside…I think Juju comes in and plays the slot and I think there are certain packages where we’ll have Eli [Rogers] in the slot and Juju outside.”

Talking more about the offense, Ben shared with us what they need to do better in their second half of the season.

“6-2 is really all that matters. I know we haven’t played up to our potential…We want to score as many points as we can. We need to be more successful in the red zone. We’re down there a lot, we’ve got to score, we possess the ball, we’ve got to find ways to finish with seven in the red zone instead of three.”

It seems that no matter how well things are going for this team, there always seems to be a focus on the New England Patriots, the team that seems to always stand between the Steelers and the Super Bowl and Ben was asked about whether or not they follow with the Patriots are doing and keep a close eye on them.

“They’re the champs, right? They’re the best in the world. They won it last year and when you do that and you have the title and you have your name on the Lombardi, you should be talked about, you should be looked at. They’ve earned that and they deserve it. You obviously pay attention to what other people in the AFC are doing, […]

…courtesy of one of our favorite Steelers fans, Dave DiCello:


“Afternoon guys! Just got back from an awesome family shoot at Mingo Creek Park, and the fall colors (at least the ones that were left on the trees!) were a perfect backdrop. This is a view of the Ebenezer Covered Bridge there, which provide the backdrop for most of our images. The light was perfect, the temperature was perfect, all around a great way to spend a fall afternoon!”


More from Dave here.

Recap of Ben’s “Special Edition” Wednesday (Bye Week) Show with Cook & Poni:

Roethlisberger and the Steelers are heading into the bye week at (6-2) after a 20-15 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday night. The Steelers are tied with New England and Kansas City for the best record in the AFC at the halfway point of the season.

A big part of the Steelers victory over the Lions this past week was due to the performance of rookie wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster who has now been named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week and Ben talked about what it means to the team to have him breakout like this.

“It’s fun to watch him,” Ben told us. “The kid just has fun playing football. It’s so innocent, and I don’t want to say it’s just youthful innocence, but he just really enjoys just going out and playing football.”

A big part of Juju’s breakout was the 97-yard touchdown pass he caught and Ben walked us through that play and how it came together.

“We had talked about something earlier in the game where he didn’t get open on a similar type defense because he tried to give a move…On the sidelines when we talked about it previously in the game, I said ‘Next time, don’t try and give him a move, just beat him with speed and see if we can get him because he’s waiting for you to make that move.’ So we got the perfect look…and this time instead of giving the move, he just went fast, went down the middle, at the top of his route just gave a little head nod instead of slowing his feet down and got just enough separation that I could put it over the top and let him run under it and he didn’t break stride as he’s running…We were laughing in the quarterback room though, he must have looked over his shoulder 20 times back and forth like, ‘I’ve got three guys chasing me, who’s gonna catch me?’

Juju did have one mistake where he dropped what could have been a critical third down pass and Ben shared with us that when he congratulated Juju afterwards for his big game, he was still focused on that drop.

“He was sitting there and his […]