Ben Roethlisberger arguably had his best game of the season against the Bengals in the Steelers' 29-14 victory on Sunday. His 224 yards on 14 completions and two touchdowns wasn't the product of a ton of passes, but he was efficient and showed excellent composure in his decision-making and recognition of defenses.
We take a look at how he was able to do all that in the film room:
Working the ball to Brown without making it obvious
When you hear discussions about how Roethlisberger might force passes to Antonio Brown in situations that might get the offense into trouble, the reasoning there is that it allows defenses to easily key into what the Steelers are trying to do, making their job that much easier.
But the proper response to the question of how to not make that obvious isn't to make it a point to not throw the ball to Brown as much, but rather to make sure that he's in the proper position on plays that give him the best opportunity to attack opposing defenses.
That means taking a look at the route combinations called on Steelers' passing plays and when they're used against the various pre-snap looks defenses show.
Every time the Steelers come to the line of scrimmage they have a preset of multiple plays they can call to exploit the look they expect from the opposing defense. That means that based on whether they expect the defense to run man, zone, Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 3 or Cover 4, the offense has an idea of how to attack each different scheme.
Each defensive scheme has its own soft spots, and it becomes easier to identify them based on which defenders you can isolate into making difficult decisions.
An example of this was on Brown's 16-yard reception in the first quarter. The Bengals come out in a Cover 6 zone scheme which places an emphasis on the side with one high safety, where Brown lined up.
Brown is highlighted in yellow in the below play and runs a slant into the space of Bengals' strong-side linebacker, Nick Vigil, who leads the team in tackles and is highlighted in red. The Bengals' zone on that side of the field uses three defenders; the cornerback covering the sideline, the safety covering a deep half of the field, and the linebacker playing an intermediate zone.
Vigil is the linebacker and he is tasked to cover basically half of the field where Brown attacks with his slant. When Roethlisberger sees the Bengals' other two linebackers attack the other side of the field aggressively in response to the screen play setup to that side, he knows he has Brown running against a linebacker playing zone, which is the very definition of a favorable matchup in football:
Even when the Steelers didn't necessarily have a personnel advantage like Brown vs. Vigil, Roethlisberger was able to identify the weak spots of the defense and attack with precision.
A solid example was Brown's 39-yard reception behind William Jackson III. The Bengals show two high safeties and follow suit with a basic Cover 2 defense. The Cover 2 has multiple stress points that can be exploited, and one of them places an emphasis on the cornerbacks outside the numbers who normally have to cover the flat.
That's what a smash route combination does to a Cover 2 defense, and the Steelers call that combination with Juju Smith-Schuster and Brown. The smash route combination has one receiver run a short hitch route that attacks the flat for a short and easy completion while the other receiver runs a deep corner route that cuts underneath the high safety.
Smith-Schuster runs the short route, while Brown runs the deep corner, and it forces Jackson III to make a decision between the two. While Smith-Schuster, the receiver highlighted in red closer to the line of scrimmage, attacks the flat and has a defender close by, the closer he gets to the sideline, the more Jackson III has to respect the chance he could get open.
Jackson III sees this and tries to play between Smith-Schuster and Brown, the deeper receiver highlighted in red, and the result is the Steelers getting a deep completion underneath the safety who cannot afford to come up and help without abandoning his deep responsibility:
Roethlisberger also attacked the Bengals' Cover 3 defense pretty well in the game, which we keyed on as part of our preview last week. One of the best ways to beat a Cover 3 defense is by attacking the seams that naturally develop between the deep defenders.
The three deep defenders are highlighted in yellow at the onset of the play below. This is the tell that the defense could be in Cover 3, which Roethlisberger recognizes. Note the amount of space between the defenders as an example of why that part of the field is a solid option to attack against a Cover 3.
Roethlisberger sees the Bengals creep up with their linebackers, where Vontaze Burfict is highlighted in red, and he immediately recognizes that the cornerbacks won't have any help against Brown's slant that runs between the outside corner and the safety, the open space highlighted in yellow:
These moments cannot always happen like a play is drawn up, as defenses will try to key in on what offenses like to do as well, but when you can get the right play against the right defense and have your best player being in position to exploit the weakness, that's about as happy as you can get as an offensive coordinator.
Brown being in those positions each week is all about the Steelers planning ahead and knowing how the calls in their playbook can best attack the defenses they face. The Bengals came into that game allowing fewer points-per-game than the Steelers, but thanks to a solid plan of attack, that was not the case after the game.
Bring Bell back into the passing game
What should really excite Steelers fans about the passing game was how Roethlisberger was able to get Le'Veon Bell involved in the passing game in the manner which he has tortured defenses the past few years.
Bell accrued plenty of receiving yards in 2014 and 2016 with delayed routes out of the backfield. The whole point of this is for defenses to play their responsibilities against the other four receiving options, who run their routes immediately after the snap.
As the other routes develop -- highlighted in yellow -- Bell, highlighted in red, can attack a space close to the line of scrimmage and sit in an area where no defender is around to challenge him as they're all busy running with the other routes:
What makes this even more problematic for defenses is how dangerous Bell is when he gets the ball in his hands. The Bengals dealt with that reality when Bell racked up 42 yards against them in the second quarter on a reception that was caught right on the line of scrimmage.
Again, Bell doesn't even begin his route until the Steelers' other receiving threats have run their routes and opened up space for him to maneuver. But in this instance, the Bengals react aggressively when they see Bell catch the ball and try to close on him:
Not only does Bell beat the first man who attacks him, he completely splits all three Cincinnati linebackers and quickly accelerates into the secondary. That's where he got busy and completely decimated Dre Kirkpatrick with a vicious stiff arm.
This is what can be the most frustrating point of this Steelers' offense when it is firing on all cylinders. If the ground game is working and Roethlisberger is dissecting your defense with precise passes to his receivers and tight ends, the last thing a defense might have time to account for is a running back coming from the backfield 3-4 seconds after the play has begun.
And with the NFL's top threat at running back being that option, they can't afford to overlook him, which puts that much more stress on defenders who already have to worry about the Steelers' capability to rip them apart with their athletic receivers.
It also takes pressure off of Roethlisberger, as he can dump off simple short passes instead of challenging athletic cornerbacks in tighter passing windows.
Beating defenses with all their weapons
What opens up opportunities for the Steelers' top stars in Brown and Bell is when the offense can beat opponents with the other threats on the field. That helps when your quarterback is reading defenses and exploiting their soft spots.
Watch how Roethlisberger attacks a Cover 2 scheme by reading the middle of the field. Normally a Cover 2 stresses the middle of the field because of the two high safeties having to each cover half of the field while also making sure no receiver gets behind them.
That, in turn, puts stress on players playing underneath coverage to help cover that part of the field if they see the offense attacking there. The Steelers do just that with Vance McDonald and he makes a big catch in the middle of the field.
Notice the open space highlighted in yellow and how it sits directly behind where Burfict lines up on the play. Burfict can either cover that part of the field or come up and help against Smith-Schuster running a drag route. Burfict bites on Smith-Schuster's route, which opens up the space for McDonald to attack and creates a decent passing window for Roethlisberger to fit the ball:
It's not enough to just recognize what defenses are trying to do pre-snap, but to also integrate that with what you see the defense doing after the snap and see how the defenders who you want to isolate into making a tough decision react to the play you call.
When you put pressure on the right player, you eventually get to burst open huge opportunities -- like when Smith-Schuster scored a touchdown in the second quarter.
On that play the Bengals show a Cover 3 defense again, with the three deep defenders highlighted in red at the onset of the play. Helping them are four other players on the defense playing underneath coverage, but that still doesn't help with the problem of the seams being a soft spot with this defense.
With the dynamic threats in the Steelers offense, it also forces those deep defenders to cheat and help either way. That's what happened when the deep safety in the middle of the field, highlighted in red in the middle of the play, cheated over to help against Brown who was running a deep route to the right of the formation.
As soon as he did that, the deep middle was open and the underneath cover men couldn't do much to help. The other cornerback with deep coverage had to stick to his sideline and Smith-Schuster just had to work past the linebacker to find the easy soft spot in the defense:
Sometimes that soft spot in the defense doesn't come by design, but is the result of a specific player's skill set. That was the case for Martavis Bryant when he beat both the cornerback running with him and the deep safety who couldn't keep up, even with giving Bryant a 10-yard cushion.
The read by Roethlisberger was correct, but just like his deep ball to Bryant has been all season, he sailed the ball too high and missed his target:
Bryant's method of getting behind the defense involves him having a long stride that picks up speed as he works his way into the secondary. He often will slightly angle the start of his deep routes to the outside only to cut them back ever so slightly to the inside.
This has been his method for years, but Roethlisberger has only connected with him on one of these opportunities this season. Ben's arm strength has been arguably the best attribute of his career, allowing him to strike deep and take the top off of defenses with speedy receivers like Bryant, and even in the earlier days of Mike Wallace.
While Bryant's frustrations have boiled over too much and become public issues for the Steelers, they're understandable as he has been beating cornerbacks multiple times in every game he's played this season. Despite that, Roethlisberger has yet to take advantage of his elite speed and put a ball on the money that can allow Bryant the chance to change the game the way he did so many times in 2014 and 2015.
Even though the two haven't connected yet this season, the Steelers have to continue to look for that connection to redevelop at some point. Even with it not resulting in big plays yet, the threat forces defenses to stretch out their assignments and puts more stress on the defenders playing underneath coverage.
If Roethlisberger and Bryant can connect with even as many as 40% of those deep balls in the future, the Steelers' offense will get a lot of the help they've needed in putting points on the board.
But even without that, Roethlisberger's performance against the Bengals was a solid step in the right direction for how he was able to read the defenses he faced and pick on the soft spots that the various looks presented.
If he continues to find ways to isolate the right players on opposing defenses, he could be on his way to getting the offense back on track to being the elite group everyone expected coming into this season.
Be sure to ask questions in the comments that you would like answered in this week's Friday preview edition of Carter's Classroom, where we'll break down the Steelers' matchup with the Lions!