After throwing five interceptions against the Jaguars, Ben Roethlisberger had nowhere to go but up. He did improve in Week 6, throwing 17 completions on 25 attempts for 252 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
We look at how he was able to put together a better week in the Steelers' 19-13 win over the Chiefs:
The Steelers' offense displayed a balanced attack early in the game, calling 20 running plays and 16 passing plays during the first half. The Chiefs' defense surrendered more than 100 yards to Le'Veon Bell in both games between these two teams last season, so Todd Haley relying on that aspect of the offense made sense.
Roethlisberger had 11 completions on 15 passes in the first half, and one of those four passes was an interception when Antonio Brown cut his route off short.
Where Roethlisberger improved was in his decision-making, as he was able to manipulate the Chiefs' defense with his eyes and target the softer parts of their coverage schemes.
A solid example was when he hit Martavis Bryant for a slant route over the middle for 20 yards. Watch how he looks off Derrick Johnson just enough to open up a window to target Bryant:
What's impressive about this play is how Roethlisberger both identifies and exploits Johnson while he knows Bryant will win on his route.
While Roethlisberger regularly has shown that kind of connection with Brown, he needs to develop stronger rapports with his other targets to get the offense to fire on all cylinders. Once you're comfortable with where your own targets will be as a quarterback, you can focus on what the defense is doing and capitalize more consistently.
The other side of that is having receivers who can run routes tight enough so they can win when facing man coverage schemes. Zone defenses require quarterbacks to find players in the zone and isolate them like Roethlisberger did in the play above.
However, when facing man coverage, a quarterback is often left to figure out just which receiver can beat the man in front of him and get open. The play below shows just that, as JuJu Smith-Schuster runs a hook route and Roethlisberger hits him before the defensive back recovers:
Consistently developing those connections is vital to covering up Roethlisberger's biggest weakness, his inability to consistently read defenses pre-snap. When Roethlisberger is fooled by a defense that is in a different scheme than what he expected, he gets an extra leg up if he's comfortable with where all of his receivers are on the field and can cycle through his options.
Roethlisberger did that a lot better against the Chiefs than he did against the Jaguars. His command of the offense was the biggest reason for his improvement, and he was able to attack various parts of the field with more receivers than just Brown. He completed nine passes to other receivers for 97 yards.
His lone interception on the day came on a play that was not his fault. Brown ran a slant and improvised in cutting off his route, thinking that he could cut back against Marcus Peters from that point for big yards.
But Roethlisberger saw that he had already beaten Peters with the slant and expected him to keep running the route into open space. Once he let go of the ball, Peters was in the position to make an easy interception and breathe life into a Chiefs' defense that was having a hard time figuring out the Steelers' offense in the first half:
But karma would give Roethlisberger redemption on his touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. He didn't make the right read, as the Chiefs had Brown bracketed with underneath and over-top coverage from the cornerback and safety, and Roethlisberger didn't make a good throw as the ball was thrown right to Phillip Gaines.
Gaines was beaten by Brown's wheel route, but safety Daniel Sorenson was sitting in a deep half zone responsibility as the Chiefs looked to be in Cover 2 man defense. He hovered above both Brown and Bryant's routes and broke on Brown as soon as Roethlisberger threw the ball.
Ben thought he could beat Sorenson by throwing it to Brown's back shoulder, but ended up throwing the ball so short that it was thrown right to Gaines. But he got a little bit of payback on a play that should've resulted in an interception and ended up being a touchdown by Brown:
When Brown catches the tipped pass, his jump cut completely removes Sorenson from the play and his speed takes care of the rest as he dashes to the end zone for a 51-yard touchdown.
Football is too big of a game for one person to expect that even when he does everything right on a play that the result has to be a success for his team. It takes a combination of so many factors, from how his teammates execute on a given play to how the defense reacts to what they see in the offense.
For Roethlisberger, that one play that went wrong despite every part of his decision on the play being right was the interception. But sometimes when you make good decisions throughout a game and something bad like that happens, you get a little redemption like the touchdown he had to Brown.
Roethlisberger looked better, which was what the Steelers needed to build an early lead and allow their defense to play with confidence. But he still does have a problem connecting with his deep ball. He missed Vance McDonald in the first quarter with a big opportunity to advance the ball into the red zone, and still doesn't look like he's figured out his issues with his arm.
He also missed Brown, who was wide open for a touchdown, on a third-down play with just over two minutes to go in the second quarter. Roethlisberger was targeting the mismatch he had by lining Bell up to the outside, but the Chiefs read his eyes and were able to take away that pass, albeit with a well-disguised holding of Bell.
But Roethlisberger never rotated his reads to the opposite side of the field where Brown had completely fooled the Chiefs and was wide open in the opposite corner of the end zone. That play hasn't been published yet by the NFL for us to show you, otherwise we would have the film ready to go.
If Roethlisberger had hit that opportunity, the Steelers would have had a 16-3 lead over the Chiefs at halftime and might have boosted the overall confidence of this offensive unit that has been underperforming throughout this early part of the season.
But maybe that break of Brown's touchdown pass on a play that should've resulted in an interception is the spark this unit needs to be able to put the pieces together and get back to scoring points so they can set the tone of the game.
In the past three seasons, the Steelers' offense ranked among the top ten in the NFL in points scored while relying on a defense that was still figuring out their system under Keith Butler.
Now the defense seems to have figured it out as they held the NFL's No. 1 offense, which came in averaging over 32 points per game, to just 13 points, three of which came from a botched return by Brown in the first quarter. If the offense figures it out and gets to a point where they can light up the scoreboard, watch out.
