The Steelers' franchise quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, managed to help the team earn a 6-2 record to top the AFC standings heading into their bye week. While the team's defense has ranked at the top of the NFL, the offense has yet to put a complete game together and ranks 11th in the NFL with 363.8 yards per game and 20th with 20.9 points per game.
While Le'Veon Bell has the second-most rushing yards in the league with 760, and the fourth-highest average yards per game with 95, all eyes turn to the Steelers' passing game for answers.
We take a look at what Roethlisberger did right and wrong against the Lions in the film room:
Roethlisberger finished the game with 17 completions on 31 attempts for 317 yards, one touchdown and one interception. The Lions' pass defense had not been a premier unit in the NFL, as they were ranked 22nd in the league before Sunday, allowing 244.2 yards per game.
Roethlisberger's day pushed their average to 254.6 passing yards allowed per game, which dropped their league ranking to 25th. His success came from being able to pinpoint the soft spots and weak points of the Lions' defense.
His performance against the Lions was one which showed he understood what the defense was trying to do for most of the night, but still is struggling with what appears to be a decrease in arm strength.
This isn't a new theme, as Roethlisberger has missed several deep passes during the season. The deep ball had been one of his most vital weapons throughout his career. That decrease in arm strength has forced Roethlisberger to adjust his throwing style and put more air under the ball instead of being able to zip passes with lower trajectories and more control.
A perfect example was seen on the Steelers' opening play of the game, when JuJu Smith-Schuster ran a fly route up the sideline after faking out the Lions' secondary while he pretended to block for a screen to Antonio Brown.
Smith-Schuster, highlighted in yellow, played the route perfectly and ended up being wide open, running full speed down the sideline with nobody in front of him. Roethisberger's keys to read were the outside cornerbacks and how they responded to Brown sitting in the flat as if he were waiting for a screen pass.
Roethlisberger read it perfectly and launched a deep ball, but it floated for so long and ended up being so short that Smith-Schuster had to come to a complete stop in order to make the catch:
Roethlisberger did make the right read and gave Smith-Schuster a catchable ball, but if he hit the rookie receiver in stride, this play could resulted in a 75-yard touchdown instead of a 41-yard gain.
The thing about his arm is that he's still adjusting to what his strengths may be at his age. He has to float more of his deep balls instead of forcing them into tight spaces. That makes it more difficult to make some of the tough throws into tight passing windows more than 20 yards down the field.
Watch how Roethlisberger perfectly baits the Lions' free safety, Glover Quin, by looking at Brown on the left side of the field, and throwing a deep ball to Darrius Heyward-Bey who is wide open on a corner route in the end zone.
Roethlisberger floats the pass, but it goes too far for even a receiver as fast as Heyward-Bey to get under it:
That continues to be a consistent theme with Roethlisberger and may be the most important aspect of his game to improve during the bye week. His touch on those deep passes could become the deciding point in games, as the Steelers look to put away opponents with home run opportunities like the Heyward-Bey pass.
Roethlisberger worked his way into that situation because of a mistake he made when he failed to notice how Quin was keying on Brown earlier in the game. During the first quarter, Brown was lined up in the slot and was assigned to run a simple go route into the seam of the Lions' Cover 3 defense.
Roethlisberger properly read the Cover 3 defense and his pre-snap read was to attack what is typically the weak spot of that scheme, the seam, with his best wide receiver. What he failed to recognize was how Quin consistently kept track of Brown's whereabouts and would cheat to him while keeping his eyes on Roethlisberger.
When the ball is snapped, Roethlisberger thought that he would only have a limited time to fit the ball into the seam to Brown and forced it into what ended up being triple coverage, which resulted in his ninth interception on the season:
If Roethlisberger had keyed in on the safety, he most likely would have backed off and gone to his secondary reads on the play. If he progressed enough, he would have seen Bell sitting wide-open in the flat at the top of your screen on that play.
While Bell is only a yard down the field, it's a first-down play and the 10 yards of free space in front of him would have been more than enough for Bell to pick up steam and be at his most dangerous.
But that was the biggest mistake in Roethlisberger's decision making all night, and it appears that he has significantly reduced the amount of those mistakes from earlier in the season.
A lot of that has come from the different ways he has used to identify what opposing defenses are doing. During a third-down play in the third quarter, Roethlisberger used an old-school method to identify the Lions' man coverage package when he put Brown, highlighted in yellow, in motion before the play.
Watch how the cornerback, also highlighted in yellow, in front of Brown follows him both towards the inside of the formation and back out. That was the tell Roethlisberger needed to make his read.
He attacked the defense by going to Justin Hunter, who started on the opposite side from Brown, as Hunter ran a simple drag route across the field in order to beat the man coverage. His speed gave him the space for Roethlisberger to fit the ball to him for the conversion:
It's also important to notice that Roethlisberger can still zip the ball into tight windows on shorter passes. He got the ball quickly to Hunter on the play above, and fit the ball into a much tighter window against man coverage in the second quarter when he hit Jesse James for 32 yards.
Watch how James, highlighted in yellow, sets up his route to beat linebacker Jarrad Davis over the middle. Davis does a great job trailing James and creates such a tight passing window that Roethlisberger can only put the ball in one spot, but the Steelers' quarterback does just that, and they end up with a big play:
Though that might have been the most impressive pass Roethlisberger threw on the night, his most important was undoubtedly his 97-yard touchdown pass to Smith-Schuster over the middle.
Roethlisberger was able to identify the Lions' coverage again; this time it was a Cover 2 defense. The tell was how far apart the Lions' two deep safeties were at the onset of the play, as you can see them highlighted in red.
The adjustment here is to have a receiver sprint to the middle of the field and attack the space which the Lions vacate. It's something Roethlisberger has done well throughout his career and he delivered a perfect strike for the biggest play of the game:
You can see how the ball hit Smith-Schuster in stride, allowing him to keep running at full speed and beat the Lions' secondary for the longest touchdown pass in Steeler history.
That moment should be seen as an indication that Roethlisberger is feeling out where his arm is and how to make the best of his aging body. If he can continue to find ways to adapt to how his arm works now, passes deep down the field as accurate as this may increase in frequency.
That kind of improvement could be exactly what the Steelers' offense needs as Martavis Bryant looks to return from his one-week suspension after the bye week. Bryant's best attribute in his two seasons of action with the team has been his ability to beat opponents deep and force secondaries to respect the deep ball.
If Roethlisberger figures out a way to make the deep ball a more consistent threat, the Steelers will force opponents to respect that aspect of their game and thereby open up more opportunities for Bell to run the ball against formations that crowd the box less.
