After Tony Romo broke his collar bone, I commented on this site that this was the problem with becoming dependent on one guy. The Steelers had done that last year with LeVeon Bell. They seem to be doing it with Ben Roethlisberger. Some guy replied, "That's why they got Mike Vick."
I think it is apparent now, that getting Mike Vick was not the right move. I think you could search the universe and not find a quarterback who is a worse fit in the offense that was designed around Ben. He is the classic example of a square peg being pounded into a round hole.
However, it is also apparent the coaching staff did not have confidence in Landry Jones to be Ben's number one backup. Jones looked great in yesterday's game, but this would not be the first time a backup came in and had a great game, but faded later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Longley I hope Jones doesn't punch Ben in the locker room.
What Landry has going for him is that he has been with the Steelers long enough to know the system and has the minimum skills or better to run it. That was apparent yesterday. What is not apparent is why there was not a crash program to get Vick up to intellectual speed from the second he set foot on the property. If he was going to be the first replacement, when we had a guy who already knew the system, couldn't they have assigned someone to tutor Vick and cram the way you do the night before an exam? If all this was taking place, was he incapable of getting it? All we kept hearing after those first two games he played in was how he didn't even understand the language of the new system. The coaches essentially had to design an offense that fit Vick and do it under duress.
This seems to me as if the Steeler brain trust made some fundamental judgement errors in all that process. If Vick was so far behind the curve the moment Ben's knee was whacked, why was he "the next man up"?
It is apparent the Steelers lost confidence in Bell's backup going into the playoff game last year and brought in a guy who did not know the system at the last minute. Then they did the same thing this year when Gradkowski went down. They just got a guy who is the worst possible fit you could find. Why?
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