If chicks really do dig the long ball, they must love Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
For starters, Roethlisberger has completed 36 deep passes so far this season and while that currently ranks him sixth in the league in that stat, its important to remember that he missed four games earlier in the season with a sprained left MCL.
While Roethlisberger’s deep ball completions have certainly resulted in several explosive plays of 20 yards or more so far this season, 28 to be exact, you might be surprised to know that 14 of them have resulted in double explosive plays of 40 yards or more and he currently leads the league in that stat.
In Sunday night’s win over the Indianapolis Colts, Roethlisberger registered two deep pass completions that resulted in gains of 40 yards or more with one of them culminating in a 68-yard touchdown to wide receiver Martavis Bryant.
The other deep pass double explosive play completion that Roethlisberger had Sunday night went to wide receiver Antonio Brown, who is now tied for the league lead with Cleveland Browns wide receiver Travis Benjamin with 6 such receptions. That pass by Roethlisberger was a gutsy-one at that as he had to drop perfectly into the bucket over the top of two Colts defenders.
Sunday night, Roethlisberger threw a total of 14 deep passes against the Colts and completed 7 of them. One of those completions, however, was wiped out completely thanks to penalty by center Cody Wallace. In fact, during the middle of the game, Roethlisberger completed five straight deep pass attempts.
Over the course of the last 3 games, Roethlisberger has attempted the most deep passes (41) in the league and he’s completed 17 of them (41.5%) for a staggering 621 yards. 16 of those resulted in explosive plays of 20 yards or more.
As you all should know by now, explosive plays are usually a key factor in every game and Roethlisberger is one of the best in the game at delivering them and he usually prefers to get them via the long ball. I can certainly dig that.
