“Blue 80! Blue 80! Set, hut!”
You heard that from QB Ben Roethlisberger so much you probably still remember exactly how it sounds. It’s become part of Steelers meme culture. But what did “Blue 80” mean? Something? Nothing.
In a livestream of Roethlisberger’s Footbahlin podcast, airing during Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers, he offered an answer. As asked by Steelers Depot reader Sad Champ off the discussion Dave Bryan and I had on Friday’s Terrible Podcast, wondering the same thing, Roethlisberger offered some insight.
“Yeah, sometimes colors would mean something,” Roethlisberger said. “A lot of times, it’s a rhythmic thing that didn’t mean anything. But sometimes you would have live colors. Going into the week, you would say ‘Red is live.’ Or ‘Green is live.’ Or whatever. Sometimes, color/number did matter.”
So “Blue” could be a code color at the snap. That type of verbiage is common and in nearly every team’s playbook. Words that mean left or right or some other check. But because “Blue” was used seemingly every snap, Roethlisberger said that word often didn’t really tell the offense anything. It was just part of his cadence.
“Sometimes they did matter. Sometimes you’d give dummy stuff. I would say 95 percent of the time it didn’t matter,” he said.
Of course, using “Blue” or any other verbiage would be a giveaway you wouldn’t need Connor Stallions to figure out. So part of the offense’s language at the line means nothing. Empty words to make the defense think they’re learning or keying in on something. That can change game to game but also drive to drive or quarter to quarter, depending on the coaches’ preference.
Roethlisberger offered more detail for how the Steelers operated at the line.
“I’ll give a little no-huddle secret away. Because I’m sure Matt Canada took my no-huddle stuff away. We would use colors like brown or red for right. And blue and black for left….just telling guys which way protection was going, which way the run was going,” he said.
Roethlisberger might have had a tiny bit of shade with that Canada comment but that was likely just him admitting the offense changed under QB Kenny Pickett with his language and expansive no-huddle plays removed. He’s not giving away any secrets the team has today. But it’s interesting insight to get from Roethlisberger, even in retirement, to learn a little bit more about what his words meant.
And what they didn’t.
