The Steelers are winless, the Jets are a 3-2 surprise. Nevertheless, the Jets are preparing for a nightmare on Sunday.
The “nightmare” is Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger who has been passing — and running for his life — behind a makeshift offensive line.
“He can be nightmarish because when he’s in the pocket, he can make every throw,” Jets defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman said Thursday of the two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. “He can be, seriously, a nightmare because once the play breaks down, that’s where you really begin to worry about him because he can improvise.
“He starts to run and move around and it becomes basically playground football. There’s no one in the league that does it better.”
Roethlisberger has had to do all that this season behind an offensive line that lost Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey to a torn ACL the first week. Pittsburgh is an uncharacteristic 0-4 and has yielded 15 sacks (tied for 22nd) — that’s one sack for every 8.5 pass plays (tied for 24th). Roethlisberger has fumbled five times and thrown five interceptions. But the Jets, tied for fifth in sacks, remain wary.
“He’s a hard quarterback to bring down,” linebacker Quinton Coples said. “He’s a street-ball type of guy. … I guess a quarterback that big and evasive is kind of weird. But it’s the state of things in the NFL: big and fast.”
The Jets desperately want Roethlisberger’s misery and harried lifestyle to continue at least one more week.
“A great quarterback, nothing’s changed. He still makes plays happen with his feet. No matter what offensive line he’s got, he’s still Ben. Just got to make sure we get to him to contain him and then bring him down,” said defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson who stressed pressuring Roethlisberger is “real major.”
It’s one thing to pressure, another thing to actually wrap up Roethlisberger — and yet another to bring him down.
“He’s just very evasive,” linebacker Demario Davis said. “He’s one of the best in the league at getting away. Pressure is going to be huge for us, as it is every week. We’ve just got to be able to get back there and keep him contained, bring him down and not let him extend plays.”
Defensive lineman Leger Douzable described Roethlisberger simply as “not a normal quarterback, the guy’s like 6-5, 6-6 and 250 pounds.”
Actually, he’s listed as 241 pounds, but who’s counting?
“So, it’s important to wrap him up, very important to pressure him,” Douzable said. “It’s going to take more than one guy, we know that. He’s almost built an art of getting out of tackles.”
As coach Rex Ryan put it: “He’s just big and you’ve got to make sure you wrap him. There’s no question. He can shake you and he knows it.”
Davis cautioned about looking at the Steelers’ offensive line, which recently added veteran tackle Levi Brown from Arizona, as a pushover. Either Brown or Kelvin Beachum will start at left tackle for the demoted Mike Adams.
“You have to be prepared for what they do specifically, but you have to approach it knowing that everybody in this game is an NFL player, so you’ve got to be high intensity or you could be shocked,” Davis said.
Coples concurred.
“Regardless of what anybody is saying, we know Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh and they’ve had a great program forever. We take that to heart,” Coples said. “We know they’ve just had a bye week and they’re going to give all they’ve got.”