Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger certainly didn’t have a great performance in Sunday’s win over the Cincinatti Bengals and especially when it came to his deep passes during the game. For the game, Roethlisberger completed just 3 of his 9 deep passes thrown more than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage with two of his completions going to second-year wide receiver Sammie Coates.
The biggest completion to Coates in Sunday’s game came with 7:12 left in the third quarter and the Steelers leading the Bengals 10-6 at the time. It was a 1st and 10 play from the Steelers own 38-yard-line and as you can see below, Coates is lined up wide right and opposite the side of fellow wide receiver Antonio Brown. As the all-22 view of the play shows, it looks like the Bengals are playing quarter, quarter, half coverage as the lone deep safety is cheated to the side of Brown to help over the top with him.
At the snap of the football, Roethlisberger carries out his quick play action fake and then glances to his left at Brown. This look to his left not only helps keep the deep safety planted on that side of the field, it also gives Coates enough time to run his deep post route inside Bengals cornerback Darqueze Dennard. It was Roethlisberger’s best deep pass of the game and Coates did his job on the other end.
One play later, the Steelers scored a touchdown to take a 17-6 lead.
