That was the Bengals. And the Steelers are one of only two teams Palmer put up a sub-55.0 QB rating. Seems to me that if you're expecting Pitt to give up 30 to the Bengals based on one game, you've just made a case for a similar reasonable expectation that they could have made Palmer look as bad as last time they visited.Originally Posted by Redsfaithful
No one put up as good a game last weekend as did Roethlisberger. Guy finished with a passer rating of 148.7 against Cincy on Sunday. The only way you get better than that is to have a PERFECT day. That's a day Palmer has never had. Yet, you're expecting that he'd have done it on Sunday in his first ever playoff game.You lost a lot of credibility by saying that Palmer couldn't have put up as good of a game as Ben.
Wow do you misunderstand the Quarterback position. Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger are as near performance clones as two QB's get. I would be stupid to denigrate either as being anything but top-tier NFL Quarterbacks.That's a joke, there's no comparison between the two. If Roethlisberger was anywhere near as good as Palmer then the Steelers wouldn't mind him throwing a little more. As it is they gameplan to make it so that he doesn't have to expose himself by throwing more than 20 times a game.
Palmer gets more opps because he plays under a different scheme with a defense that's apt to hand the ball back to the offense quickly and requires said offense to score a ton of points.
Roethlisberger isn't protected from being "exposed". In fact, you've got it completely backwards. Pittsburgh's offensive gameplan DEMANDS that he'd be exposed consistently if that were possible. You simply cannot dedicate yourself to the run with those backs unless you've got a guy at QB who can efficiently and effectively chew up yardage consistently. You've got a lot to learn if you think that Ben Roethlisberger is some kind of dink-and-dunk Trent Dilfer or Kordell Stewart type who needs "protection".
Palmer gets more opportunities because the Bengals defense can't stop anyone. Quite often they have to play a shootout style to overcome that deficiency. Roethlisberger gets fewer because Pitt plays a different style of offense- but a style that demands more efficient QB play in fewer opportunities. And it ain't like personnel has nothing to do with it either. Gee...would I rather consistently air it out to the Bengals receiving corps or the Steelers receiving corps? Hmn...now that's a toughie. Might want to let me think on that one a little bit. Flip-flop those two QB's and what do you get? Same results, but then you'd be talking about how the Steelers are "protecting" Palmer.
Freakin' 23 year old kid LED the NFL in % of 20+ Yard Completions (20.8% vs. total Completions) while finishing with a 62.7% Completion rate and an INT rate of 3.4%. Can you name the only other QB this century who's chewed up yardage that efficiently? I'll give you two hints. His last name is "Manning" and his first name ain't "Eli". It doesn't matter how many throws it take a QB to get the job done. You simply need to stop confusing "opportunity" with "ability". Football doesn't work like that because not every team plays it the exact same way nor do they need to. Just because someone gets to do something more often, that doesn't mean he's actually better at it than the next guy.
Roethlisberger is consistently called on to make plays in the intermediate+ distances on the field with a receiving corps of Hines Ward and...um...yeah. Hines Ward. And he does it. Consistently. With precision. This season. With a bum thumb and aching knees. Sunday was his third career game with a rating of 148.0 or higher. Roethlisberger smacked the Bengals defense upside the head with as near a perfect performance as a QB could have on Sunday and you don't even know it happened because all you can do is focus on the perfect game you assume Palmer would obviously have had even though he's never had one in his NFL life.
Yeah? Well, Indy is a dramatically better football team than the Bengals and I figured that the Bengals game was a coin-flip for Pittsburgh. I expect them to lose to Indy, but I'm real happy that they'll be playing Indy rather than sitting at home.We'll see this weekend how he does when he's the focus of the offense. It's not going to be pretty.