Disrespect Ben at your own risk

A few years back, our own Ramon Foster was upset with the folks at Pro Football Focus. See, the previous season, PFF had ranked Foster as one of the worst guards in the NFL.

And so, when the guys from PFF were doing a camp tour -- the one and only time they've showed up at Saint Vincent College -- Foster let them know about it.

"Hey, Pro Football Focus!" Foster yelled across the field to the crew of five or six guys decked out from head to toe in PFF gear. "Ya'll's grades suck!"

Point taken.

That season, Foster went from being one of the worst-graded guards in the league to one of the best? Coincidence? Maybe. But Foster's play really didn't change -- at least not to the naked eye.

This brings me to the focus of this piece.

This week, the clown show that is Pro Football Focus posted this Tweet:

Yeah. They're ready for the comedy clubs. They probably need their own sitcom.

Here's the thing, I don't recall seeing any posts like that about Drew Brees. Or Philip Rivers. Or Peyton Manning, all of whom had issues throwing the football late in their careers.

But apparently, Ben Roethlisberger is fair game -- at least to the court jesters at Pro Football Focus, funny guys that they are.

All they're doing is poking the bear. Few athletes I've been around are as competitive as Roethlisberger. Few are as accomplished as Roethlisberger.

Though he won't call PFF out by name, you can bet he's been made aware of the foolish tweet. If they actually ever had anyone in their locker room, you can bet he'd let them know about it.

And you can bet he'll add that post to the rest of the people dismissing him as washed up and use it as fuel.

"When I hear the bad-mouthing about him being a 'not great quarterback' and everyone's ready to elevate other quarterbacks, what have they done?" Cam Heyward asked this week. "This guy's a proven winner, but we're ready to discount him."

Indeed.

Discount Roethlisberger if you feel the need. But you can bet he'll use it to stoke the internal fires that still burn in him.

Yes, he didn't play well at the end of the season last year. But that was as much about the team falling apart around him as it was his play. No running game and a defense compromised by key injuries will do that.

Roethlisberger still threw for more than 4,000 yards and had 37 touchdown passes in 16 games last season. He's not Manning, Brees or Rivers at the end of their respective careers.

• Heyward, Roethlisberger and nose tackle Tyson Alualu have been three of the exceptions when it came to veteran starters who showed up for the first week of OTAs. But all three live in Pittsburgh year-round and Heyward and Roethlisberger, in particular, wanted to attend the sessions to be available from a leadership standpoint. 

“The guys that aren’t here are usually veterans that have been in the system,” Heyward said. “For me and Ben, we’re trying to cultivate relationships right now. We’re trying learn different guys and new positions. That just comes with time.” 

That’s exactly what you would want and expect from your veteran leaders. 

The Steelers have some holes in that department with the departures of players such as center Maurkice Pouncey and left tackle Alejandro Villanueva. 

As Zach Banner said this week, "You’ll never be able to fill the gap that 53 left. No one will. He’s his own guy, and he was a center. That’s a whole different book."

Roethlisberger needs to be more vocal and more present than ever with what will be a very young offensive unit. 

And he’s taking that role very seriously.

That's what the above PFF video should have mentioned. Think Tom Brady would be being lauded for his leadership if he was shown putting in time working with the team's first-round draft pick on his pass catching skills?

Heck, it would be the lead story on SportsCenter, not something that is a source of ridicule.

• In Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers is skipping OTAs demanding a trade or threatening to sit out the season because the Packers selected quarterback Jordan Love in the first round of the draft prior to the 2020 season.

Rodgers is in the second year of a 4-year, $134-million contract with the Packers that included a $57 million signing bonus and nearly $100 million fully guaranteed. Yet he wants out of Green Bay because the Packers didn't consult him before drafting Love.

Makes Roethlisberger's statements in 2019 after the Steelers selected Mason Rudolph in the third round of the draft seem pretty tame in comparison. He just asked how that made the Steelers a better team now -- a reasonable question.

And yet we all know what a big deal was made out of that.

• So, Kevin Dotson said the Steelers are working more on playing in a three-point stance under new offensive line coach Adrian Klemm.

"He emphasized it more for the tackles," Dotson said of Klemm's pushing linemen to use more three-point stances. "Last year I did a three-point stance the whole year, so it didn't change for me. But some of the guards did a two-point stance last year and he's trying to get them away from that so they'll come off the ball a little more."

Many fans take that to mean Roethlisberger in shotgun less and under center more. That's not necessarily the case. Linemen can be in a three-point stance in the shotgun. And you can run the ball effectively out of that formation.

According to Football Outsiders, the Steelers were in shotgun 82.8 percent of the time last season, the fourth-highest total in the league.

The top team? The Ravens, who run almost exclusively out of the shotgun (96.6 percent). Baltimore also led the NFL in rushing.

Now, Lamar Jackson is a big reason for that, but the Colts, who had a statuesque Rivers at quarterback last season, ranked 10th in the amount of shotgun they used. They ranked 11th in the league in rushing with a quarterback who added minus-8 rushing yards to their total.

Roethlisberger is more mobile right now than Rivers ever was in his career. The Steelers can run the football in the shotgun. They just need that mentality that Klemm is adding to the equation.

• It was big news for the Steelers that both Banner and inside linebacker Devin Bush were back on the field this week.

Bush, in particular, being back healthy would be a huge thing for this team. He's a unicorn, something of which they don't have another on their roster.

When you have two inside linebackers who don't cover well, you'd better believe the opposing offense is going to get those guys matched up in coverage. When you only have one inside linebacker that doesn't cover well, you can account for that.

That was a big problem against the Browns in the playoffs. Cleveland would come out with Nick Chubb or Kareem Hunt in the backfield, two tight ends and two wide receivers. That's a big formation that calls for the Steelers to use their base defense.

The Browns would then split one or both tight ends out to the boundary to force either Vince Williams or Robert Spillane to cover someone they can't cover.

Had the Steelers gone to a nickel to counter that, the Browns simply would have run the ball.

Bush gives the Steelers the ability to match up against offenses that try to attack them in that fashion.