During his weekly radio show Tuesday on 93.7 The Fan, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger took issue with people thinking that his post game comments about the offense getting away from running the football in the second half in the Sunday loss to the Miami Dolphins was some sort of jab at offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
“It’s unbelievable,” Roethlisberger said. “It gets blown up and it’s by reporters that come in there and ask the dumbest questions after a game, and it makes it ridiculous when they only take part of your answer.
“It was taken way out of context. There is absolutely no issue between Coach Haley and I. I love where this offense is right now.”
Roethlisberger is obviously pointing his dissatisfaction at NFL Network reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala, who after the game only quoted the quarterback as saying, “No idea. Coach Haley’s over there. You can ask him,” when asked why Steelers didn’t run as much in the second half.
“They take one little blurb of a whole sentence and it was not directed at Coach Haley, like ‘Go ask him, I don’t know why we didn’t do it,'” Roethlisberger said on Tuesday. “It was, ‘He’s our coordinator, if you want to ask questions about play calling, go ask him about it. He’s the guy that calls the plays. If you want to ask me about the no-huddle and I’m calling [plays], then you can ask me.’
“But in no way shape or form was the [comment] directed negatively at him. I think the offense is as good as it’s been in a long time. We’ve got guys doing some great things. I genuinely am enjoying this offense and what Coach Haley is doing and where we’re going. We’re getting [better] every week, and I think we can keep getting better.”
As far as the offense goes, it has been much improved over the course of the last several weeks. In fact, in the last 20 trips inside the red zone dating back to the game against the New England Patriots, the offense scored a touchdown 12 times. In the previous 20 trips inside the red zone dating back to the start of the season, the offense only scored a touchdown on 8 of those trips.
