After Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was sacked four times Sunday in 17-9 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, there’s been a lot of criticism of the offensive line. After all, when a team’s quarterback is sacked that many times in a game it has to be because the pass protection sucks, right?
After the game, Roethlisberger defended the play of the five men up front that protect him.
“The line played a lot better than what the stats are going to say, Roethlisberger said during his post game press conference. “That’s a great defense, a good defensive front, and they got after it. I know there are going to be some stats on sacks and stuff like that, but they played a lot better than what it’s going to be written as. A lot of those are on me, the sacks, the fumble – just can’t let it happen. You know, a couple times rather than throw the ball away, I took a sack there at the end because you’d rather [have] the clock keep running.”
I will let Alex Kozora break all four of Sunday’s sacks down in detail like he usually does every week as he will also show you the coverages. Before he does that, however, I thought you should at least see the sacks from the end zone view.
I’m going to list some times underneath each of the animated gifs below that are relevant to each play and time until sack. In case you are curious, the video editor that I use allows me to go frame by frame in order to get accurate times.
Keep Roethlisberger’s comments in mind when examining these and I look forward to your comments below. I think you will see they are justified. Alex will have his complete breakdown of these four sacks in a day or two.
SACK #1 – 2Q – 3-4-JAX 4 – (13:26) (Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger sacked at JAX 6 for -2 yards (P.Posluszny). Roethlisberger pulls down ball 3 seconds after snap.
SACK #2 – 2Q – 1-10-JAX 41 – (9:30) (Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger sacked at JAX 47 for -6 yards (A.Jones). Roethlisberger first hit 3.4 seconds after snap.
SACK #1 – 4Q – 3-3-JAX 13 – (12:32) (No Huddle, Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger sacked at JAX 19 for -6 yards (A.Jones). FUMBLES (A.Jones), RECOVERED by JAX-A.Branch at JAX 17. A.Branch to JAX 17 for no gain (M.Pouncey). Roethlisberger pulls down ball 2.7 seconds after snap.
4Q – 1-10-PIT 18 – (9:28) (Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger sacked at PIT 18 for 0 yards (C.Clemons). Roethlisberger pulls down ball 2.6 seconds after snap.
