you could be right. but there are other factors that contribute to that stat being as high as it is (the amount of hits he takes).

1. he holds onto the ball too long (the steelers don’t often play a dink and dunk style of passing offense)

2. we face baltimore twice a year. i’ll bet carson palmer and derek anderson are pretty high on that list, too.

3. look at the numbers of time of possession during ben’s time as starting qb. i’ll bet we are one of the top teams. that means we have the ball more. that means we run more offensive plays. that means he has more opportunities to be hit than other qbs.

4. we are better at run blocking than pass protecting.

5. we have been a running team, which means we are often content to run it on first and second down, and then pass on third down. this has often left us with third and longs. when teams know you are going to pass, they can tee-off on you.

those are just some of my thoughts…

that play was quite unbelievable

they also said that Big Ben had told them before the game, that he felt he could shrug of linebackers, and get away from the blitz. knowing that, i have more confidence in him. ( not saying that i didn’t have any in him before ) i had a 95% confidence in him until the moment he said that, he just bumped it into a 110%. it takes guts to say your not afraid of the blitz, especially when you have Ray Lewis and Shaun Rogers on you every other play.

no one likes to see their $100 million qb hit so much, but, that is the type of player ben is. he needs to be contacted, he needs to move around in the pocket…he feeds off of it. can he take the hits? it appears so. i think its us fans that can’t take the hits. the oline played much better last night against a very, very physical defense…but a lot of the hits were because ben holds the ball. and he will continue to hold the ball, because he KNOWS that can make a play. and if he can’t throw the ball and make a play, he knows that he can run to make a play.

that style of play might get him killed, but it might also take us to tampa come february, and eventually put him in canton.

Even though Ben seems like a distinguished league vet, he still needs more growth in his understanding of the position and the game. First and foremost among the areas I would like to see him grw is recognition of a saveable versus non-saveable play. I have found myself being able to see the plays developing and can see the big hits coming. I would say Ben still sees to many plays as saveable, thus holding the ball and getting blasted.

Second, I would like to see him become more Manning-like in his calling out of the protection schemes, and audible out of plays likely to fail when the blitz or coverage dictates. That type of recognition is what has set Peyton apart from the rest of the league, and kept him healthy. The only place to get this knowledge is the film room. Somebody get him a cot!