Ben Roethlisberger loves using the no-huddle offense.
Always has.
It goes back to his days at Miami (Ohio), where he used that style of offense extensively, piling up huge passing numbers and lots of wins, and has continued throughout his 17-year NFL career.
This season, however, the no-huddle has largely been a no-show for the Steelers (3-0), who have used it sparingly in their first three games.
The Steelers have used some "muddle-huddle," where they don't really circle up before stepping back to the line of scrimmage. But in terms of true no-huddle passes, Roethlisberger has attempted just 13 this season, completing 11 for 93 yards and a touchdown.
That puts him on pace to throw just 69 passes out of the no-huddle this season, which would be his fewest since 2012, when he attempted just 37 passes running that style of offense. Every year since in which he has played a full season, Roethlisberger has been well over 100 pass attempts in no-huddle situations.
That could change Sunday when the Steelers host the Eagles (1-2-1) at Heinz Field. First, the no-huddle is a way to generate some quick offense. And the Eagles, despite their record, have been solid on defense, allowing opponents 5.1 yards per play, which ranks fifth in the league.
More importantly, the Eagles like to use a rotation of players on their defensive front, shuffling a number of different defensive lineman into the game to keep their pass rushers fresh. With the Steelers off last week with a surprise bye, Philadelphia has overtaken Pittsburgh for the lead in sacks this season with 17 -- two more than the Steelers. And that pressure is generated from their four-man front, with 13.5 of their sacks coming from defensive linemen.
One way the Steelers can slow that pass rush down and keep the Eagles from substituting linemen up front would be to go to the no-huddle.
"It is if you’re doing it efficiently," Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said when I asked him that was the case. "By efficiently, I mean you’re minimizing negative plays, and you’re completing the ball at a decent completion percentage. Those are two factors that really kind of weigh into our judgments about whether or not we have a desire to utilize that package week-in and week-out."
Over the course of his career, Roethlisberger has used the no-huddle extensively and well. For his career, he completes 65.6 percent of his passes out of the no-huddle, a full point higher than his career average. And while his passer rating of 91.9 is slightly lower than his career average, part of that can be attributed to running the no-huddle at times when the team is trailing late in games, forcing him to take some chances.
Typically, when the Steelers have used the no-huddle as a weapon in normal game circumstances, it works more often than not. In his last full season in 2018, for example, the Steelers used it more extensively, and Roethlisberger posted a 98.1 passer rating, completing nearly 70 percent of his passes.
But there are dangers to doing it, as well, most notably, the way it can put your defense at risk if you go to a hurry-up and wind up punting quickly.
"Those decisions do not happen in a vacuum. It’s more than just the matchup of our offense versus their defense," Tomlin said. "There is a global perspective, if you will, in terms of how the units or the teams’ matchup up and what our defense might need from a support standpoint in an effort to have a winning performance."
For the Steelers, there's also some concern about having the right people on the field offensively to make it work.
The reasons they haven't used much no-huddle early in the season are two-fold. First is the fact Roethlisberger has been knocking off some rust from inactivity after playing just 1 1/2 games in a two-year period following his 2019 surgery to repair torn flexor ligaments in his throwing elbow. And then there is the fact that he's working with a group of receivers with which he doesn't have a ton of experience.
JuJu Smith-Schuster and tight end Vance McDonald have been with him for a few years, but he had little experience playing with James Washington and Diontae Johnson, and none with Chase Claypool and tight end Eric Ebron. Johnson, his favorite target this season, has been cleared of concussion protocol and will play this week against the Eagles.
The first three games and a bye last week have allowed that group to continue to work together to the point where the Steelers might be more inclined to allow the no-huddle to be a weapon again.
The Steelers are averaging 26.7 points per game, but there's still more there to be had. They haven't performed at their peak level just yet. And adding the no-huddle back into the offense as a weapon could be the final missing piece.
"We just haven’t really hit our stride offensively yet where we have done a ton of no-huddle," Roethlisberger said recently when asked how he could get Ebron and McDonald, his tight ends, incorporated into the offense more effectively. "I think they get involved a lot in the no-huddle stuff. We haven’t done a ton of that yet."
They haven't done a ton of it yet, but history shows that, like winter, it could be coming.