Roethlisberger Has Magic Touch

The Pittsburgh Steelers, suddenly the best football team in the NFL, can’t have an undefeated season -- they’ve already lost -- but they can have an undefeated quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger, a jumbo Joe Montana-type, throws passes that fall as gently into the right hands as Montana’s.

Roethlisberger, already 6-0 going into Sunday’s Cleveland game, fits the Steelers as if he were born to play in Pittsburgh.

When he joined them as a rookie last summer, providing precisely what Coach Bill Cowher’s offense lacked, the Steelers were already a strong team.

As the Philadelphia Eagles discovered in a 27-3 defeat last Sunday, the Steelers’ offensive line is their strength.

Cowher also fields a successful 3-4 defense that hinges on USC-trained safety Troy Polamalu and four large, fast linebackers.

In the scoring department, the Steelers have assembled four big guns, wide receivers Hines Ward and 6-foot-5 Plaxico Burress and running backs Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis.

Six weeks ago, Cowher, looking at his 1-1 team, could count on every man but one. And since then, that one has won them all.

Easy Does It

As the Steelers asked him to throw half the time on first down in the first half, Roethlisberger hit the Eagles with a pair of touchdown passes in an aggressive 21-3 performance that showcased a new kind of quarterback.

Seldom have such soft, easy passes flowed out of the grip of a 6-5, 242-pound passer.

Roethlisberger simply laid the ball out there at the right time and, usually, in the right spot.

With Roethlisberger throwing, the Steelers call no deep crossing patterns, no deep square-ins or square-outs. Football fans looking for power passes must look elsewhere.

Even his occasional bombs arrive as floaters.

For, whereas power passers are typically as big-armed as Brett Favre, Roethlisberger has the arms of a much smaller man

In Pittsburgh, off-season project No. 1 seems indicated: intensive physical conditioning for their big new quarterback.

In defense of their 18-point lead, the Steelers, in the second half, ran the clock with Bettis, except on third down.

And though third down normally means heavy pressure on the passer, and though it should therefore usually belong to the defensive team, Roethlisberger nonetheless completed most of his third-down passes in the second half as he and Bettis preserved their first-half momentum.

New Coordinators

Cowher, the NFL’s senior coach, has three new weapons in his 13th season.

One is Roethlisberger.

Second, Cowher himself seems to have mellowed and now, apparently, gets along with his players.

And, third, he has reorganized the coaching staff, putting two assistants in full command. They are offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt, a jumped-up tight end, and defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, a former NFL head coach who has rejoined the Steelers to take the defense off Cowher’s hands.

One mark of a heads-up offensive coordinator is whether he’s ready with special plays for special occasions when a game is on the line. And last Sunday, Whisenhunt was ready with the two calls that beat the Eagles, producing Pittsburgh’s first two touchdowns.

The first such play, sent in after Roethlisberger had passed Pittsburgh down the field, was a surprise reverse that Ward ran for 16 yards and a 7-0 lead. Reverses don’t always, or even usually, succeed. They typically work only when there’s no good reason to look for a reverse.

For his second number, Whisenhunt played on the defensive tendencies of the Eagles, who, as Roethlisberger passed to Ward for 20 yards and a touchdown, didn’t pursue the receiver on a double-motion pass play.

LeBeau is one of several sound defensive coordinators. His forte, the unusual blitz, involved all 11 potential rushers last Sunday in one or another charge at the passer.

On one play, LeBeau sent three Steelers on an outside blitz from the same side of the line. That rush, combining a linebacker, cornerback and safety -- none taking the shorter inside route -- overwhelmed the Eagles.

By comparison, the Eagle defense usually blitzed from the wrong side as Roethlisberger, or sometimes Bettis, made big plays the other way.

Colts a One-Back Team

The Indianapolis Colts, who beat Minnesota on Monday night, 31-28, might not have enough defense to last long in the playoffs but they’ve been showing the league how to run.

Again against Minnesota, in the Colts’ basic formation, they didn’t have a fullback/blocking back on the field.

Instead, lining up with only Edgerrin James behind the quarterback, the Colts attacked the Viking defense with three wide receivers. James carried 26 times for 123 yards as wide receivers tore off in all directions, taking along the defenders assigned to cover them.

Thus, as James averaged more than 4.6 yards a carry, he was frequently racing through cleared ground after taking handoffs and choosing the most promising open spaces.

Football’s conservatives, by contrast, are still trying to ram holes in the defense with fullbacks or big blocking backs assigned to lead their ballcarriers through the line.

With a lead blocker, he, not the running back, chooses the hole, and the choice has to be made two steps earlier than necessary, often before a better hole opens.

Much of the time, a blocking back simply gets in the way of the running back. Moreover, he’s usually blocking a linebacker -- the very player who comes out of the game, anyway, when a third wide receiver forces the defense to insert a fifth defensive back.

Rams Can’t Call Plays

The St. Louis Rams, with the best pass offense, are only 4-4 as they start the second half against Seattle.

The Rams’ problem is lousy play calling. Coach Mike Martz hasn’t a clue about that very important part of football.

Through three years and two Super Bowls, Martz has been the best passing coach but, now, he wants to integrate running plays with pass plays and can’t find the right recipe.

In their big years, the Rams didn’t need a running game. And now, they’re proving they still don’t understand the problem.

Thus, Martz has been operating ineffectively. Running when defenses expect a run, he bulks up with tight ends and blocking backs. Then, passing when defenses expect him to pass, he takes out the beef and inserts more speed.

Instead of passing aggressively, as they once did, the Rams are wasting downs with power runs into run defenses

Falling behind, they try to catch up by passing into pass defenses; and with quarterback Marc Bulger a sitting duck in the pocket, sacks are inevitable on third and long.

A 40-22 loser last Sunday, Martz could have taken New England with two simple play-calling changes.

First, he could have more often called first-down passes, as he did for the only touchdown scored by the Rams when the game was on the line. That time, 59 yards away from a touchdown, Martz called a first-down, fake-pass, fake-draw-play bomb that advanced the Rams to the Patriot 11.

There, where Martz has lately tried to run the ball on futile power plays, he called a first-down touchdown pass, Bulger to Isaac Bruce, who was in the clear by five yards.

Why not do that more often? NFL defenses are rarely ready for big first-down passes.

Second, Martz could have made the Ram running game an integral part of the passing game by lining up in a pass formation even on running downs.

Twice, he did that too, most notably when the Rams spread the defense with four wide receivers on a two-point conversion try and then sent Marshall Faulk scooting straight ahead for the points.

Passing is what the Rams do best and the most effective way for a passing team to run is to:

* Threaten pass on every running play with three or four wide receivers.