I agree with you guys that short passes to Parker can be a good substitute for some of those ineffective runs without being any riskier.

I posted a little something to this effect a few months ago.  Willie is a great back, but he has been suspect against runstop defenses.

http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/comments/2007/9/10/13848/9663/2#2

This is a little research i did on his 2006 campaign:

"A whopping 1059 of his yds came against just 6 teams, all of them with mediocre or even downright lousy defenses.  Cincy twice, KC, Carolina(usually a good def, but last year at the bottom of the league), Cleveland, and New Orleans.  That's a huge chunk.

Against S.D., Jax, Oak, Balt twice, Tampa, Denver, and even Atlanta and Cleveland once, he totalled 435 yds for a 3.06 avg.  In just the Denver and two Balt games did the Steelers fall behinid early and have to throw.  And I think the Atlanta game just turned into a shootout which hurt his stats.  Not to mention, the O-line was a tad shaky last year, heh."

I totally agree. Willie is no smash mouth runner. He needs space to operate at his best. Willie is like a Westbrook in that sense, so by the same token you have to get him the ball like they do Westbrook. In the run AND pass game. You look at Westbrooks stat line every week and you see almost as many yards on catches as you do in the rushing game ( if not more ). I think a 2 back set would be great. Line both Davenport and Willie up back there. You can still hand it off the either or throw to either. Davenport has looked great when he gets the ball on the screens, he can punish. And getting Willie the ball in space just makes sense. Everyone always says if Willie can get to the second level of the D he becomes much more dangerous. So why not give him the ball IN the second level. Bypass the 300 lb linemen and get it to him where he has the space to make that move and be gone.

I have no problem with Willie running up the gut because he has shown he can do that, but there are going to be alot of no gains and minus yards in there too. Let Davenport bust the D in the chops and let Willie work where his talents do the most good, AND he takes alot less punishment.

I think the 2 back set would confuse the hell out of people. Put them both back there and you can motion Willie out to a slot position and let him find a open area and get him the ball on the move and let him do what he does best.

I think our offense looks pretty damn good. The Defense may have got a little high on their own press clippings after the Seattle game. This loss may not have been the worst thing for us. Make the boys focus and be ready for the divisional game stretch we got coming up. They better be because Carson is a hell of alot better then Cutler so they better step it up.

I think Ben is a great quarterback, but if you look at his stats he is better when he throws the ball no more than 24 times.  We have all seen this because they bring it up every week.  We should use more of Willie and Davenport.  Also why does it always seem like our passing plays break down and Ben has to scramble and do something crazy.  I don't understand how other quarterbacks just drop back and throw the ball while Ben has to make a play every other passing down.  I agree with the screens comment.  It does not work because everybody knows it is coming, but the little screens to the wide receivers were affective.

A lot of great points. That Duce game was probably his best in a Steeler uniform, but FWP's performance against Denver was not atypical. Personally, I'd rather have a potential game-changing home-run hitter who strikes out (whether or not he starts with two strikes against him because of the o-line) than a singles or doubles hitter who sets the table. I kind of disagree with the suggestion that runs of two yards or less are drive-killers. Only if it's third-and-3 or longer. Incompletions are not necessarily drive killers and the same applies to short runs. But, you're right in that smashmouth football is tough to execute with that percentage of unsuccessful running plays. There's no way Jacksonville, for example, is going to be successful with that percentage.

Another point about the Denver game. Three of our first-half drives ended with turnovers. The first turnover (the deep ball to a well-covered Holmes) was on second-and-6, preceded by just one play (a 4-yd pass); the second turnover (the tipped ball off Ward) was on second-and-9, preceded by five plays (three of them running plays for a net gain of minus-3 yards; one completion for 16 yds); the third turnover (fumble for a TD) was on second-and-10, preceded by just three plays (one run for 7 yds; one completion for 27 yds). Overall, those three drives had four runs (a net gain of four yds) and five passes (three completions for a net gain of 47 yds) before the turnover plays. On two of those turnovers the Steelers were in a passing situation and, given the production leading up to them, you can hardly blame Arians or Ben for opting to pass. You could argue that the Steelers could have run the ball on second-and-6 on the first turnover possession, but the same kind of thinking on the third turnover possession would have had us running the ball on second-and-3 rather than making a 27-yard gain on a pass. The only time I felt we definitely should have run the ball was on our second series, when we followed up a seven-yard run on first down by Willie with two incompletions and a punt.  I can't remember, but maybe Hines dropped one of those passes. After passing down the field the first drive, I thought we had an opportunity to establish the run on the second drive. Perhaps we would have if the offense had taken the field with a 7-0 lead rather than after a Denver TD to tie the game.

Overall, this gets back to my belief that we have a balanced offense with multiple weapons, but when the line breaks down we are going to struggle and people will point to play-calling rather than on the source of the problem: BAD BLOCKING!!!!

This balanced, multi-weapon offense philosophy will keep all of us second-guessers busy, sometimes even when we win. Just look at the discussion about FWP being used too much after a few wins. For example: I kind of agree with people who want more of a two-back set. Davis (or Kreider) can help protect Ben as well as lead FWP.  The split-back concept (Najeh and FWP) is interesting but very old-fashioned. Maybe it would work, maybe not. At the same time, I like our 2 TE sets. That presents a big challenge to the defense and might be what is helping Miller get open, not to mention being effective with Spaeth in the red zone. I don't know if we have been successful running the ball out of the 2 TE set, my feeling is no but I could be wrong. I also like the idea of a spread formation with four receivers (3 WR and Heath split out, with a single back). We have enough talent to make it work and, given our o-line problems, maybe that is the best set for a quick pass to negate pass pressure. So, this kind of sums up the offensive conundrum. We have a variety of ways to move the ball, any of which can be effective depending on the opponent. But we also have a variety of ways that we can screw up, ESPECIALLY when we don't do a good job up front.

I don't think there is anything wrong with our offense, the game plan or, in general, the play-calling. We MUST fix the blocking problems. Then we can all go back to arguing about play-selection after wins. Thats's much more fun.

Yes, I definitely like the idea of getting Willie the ball on swing passes or in underneath areas. As mentioned above, it's a great way to get him into the second level. But he isn't in the same class of receiver as Westbrook or Tomlinson. He was wide open on those two plays and made an easy catch; they won't all be easy. In any event, perhaps Davenport is a better third-down receiver out of the backfield. Holmes is impressing me with his toughness and concentration in traffic, and Hines has made a living off of tough catches. With Miller, we have more than enough weapons in the short passing game. It all comes down to execution, not play selection.

One of the points I was making by way of the original post was that I didn't think that Tomlin/Arians deserve the criticism they are getting about passing too much. Given where our strengths on offense are this year we need to have a flexible approach and be ready to throw more to build leads.

The media, for the most part, has latched on to slightly higher than average pass-run ratio as being the primary cause for defeat because of the Broncos inferior run defense ranking. PG's Ed Bouchette tears into Tomlin pretty good. ESPN.com has Tomlin as one of the options in a poll question to determine which coach of a team with a winning record is holding their team back the most. The supposedly neutral AP has a story that's mildly critical as well.

Joe Starkey of the tribune review takes the minority view and doesn't find anything wrong with the gameplan while correctly pointing out that excluding, the two minute drill, we 17 passes and 11 runs in the first half against Denver as compared to 15 passes and 12 runs in the first half against Seattle. So the problem wasn't play calling, but execution.