When the Pittsburgh Steelers came out of the locker room after halftime on Sunday, they put their offense at 11 and put on a show. The Steelers trailed 21-7 to start the second half and looked lost. But then quarterback Ben Roethlisberger took over, threw for 244 yards and three touchdowns in the half to beat the Indianapolis Colts.
But before you start to wonder if this was a case of Roethlisberger just drawing toys in the mud, it wasn’t. At least according to Eric Ebron. He spoke to the media on Monday and when the attack started, it wasn’t a matter of improvisation and the Steelers had been rehearsing all those plays.
So what was the change? It felt like Roethlisberger just took over the offensive actions regardless of offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner. In the first half, the Steelers played the same mundane, predictable attack that plagued this group for weeks.
In the second half, Roethlisberger threw out Fichtner’s plan and did it himself. That’s why the offense started. If the Steelers are to keep winning in the future, Roethlisberger should be able to call the plays from the start of the game and give him complete autonomy over the offensive game plan.