Following the Pittsburgh Steelers 34-31 loss on Sunday to the Oakland Raiders, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was quoted as saying that there were some plays that he called during the game that weren\’t in the current playbook.
“There were plays out there that I called that weren’t in our playbook,” Roethlisberger said. “I know it sounds crazy; things we’ve had from years\’ past that guys were on the same page with and it worked.”
On Tuesday Roethlisberger clarified those comments as Will Graves of the Associated Press reports via Twitter that the quarterback said that he wasn\’t calling plays from the from the playbook of former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, but instead he was just using old hand signals in no-huddle situations.
Mark Kaboly has the full Tuesday quotes from Roethlisberger up on Twitter.
“I probably didn\’t speak clearly enough. It wasn\’t necessarily that I called plays as much as I used hand signals. I really didn\’t think it would get blown up as much as it did, and I know some people are saying that I\’ve been resistant to Todd (Haley). But it\’s one of those things that we went to Todd, and it\’s in the playbook now. It was simply a signal that I used with our receivers on two different occasions. One was on the fourth-and-one, (where) we got the ball to Mike (Wallace). The other one was later on third down to Emmanuel (Sanders). So, we converted on both plays. It worked out. The point of me saying that … where everybody is on the same page (with) me using signals that we\’ve had for a long time that weren\’t necessarily in the offense, but they are now. So, it\’s just good that we\’re on the same page.”
That clarification certainly makes much more sense than the words that came out of the mouth of Roethlisberger following the game. While I wouldn\’t put it past Roethlisberger to call plays out of the old Arians playbook, he certainly would run the risk of everyone not being on the same page.
So basically there was nothing to see here, as it was just the Steelers quarterback pretty much having fun with the media.
