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The 2018 regular season has been an interesting one for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. There have been some amazing games, like the team’s beat down of the Carolina Panthers, and some performances which made you scratch your head and think, “What did I just witness?”
Throughout it all, and really over the last few seasons, there has been a clear discrepancy between Roethlisberger’s play at home, vs. his play away from Heinz Field. This is what Steelers fans typically called ‘Road Ben’.
Road Ben is no fun. In fact, Road Ben is just flat out bad. But what if Roethlisberger has found some consistency both at home and on the road this season? Let’s take a look at the 2018 regular season numbers...
Overall Record
Home: 4-3
Away: 4-2-1
Average Completion Percentage
Home: 67.3%
Away: 68.7%
TD-INT
Home: 18-6
Away: 12-9
Overall Average Passer Rating
Home: 101.3
Away: 93.6
Average Attempts
Home: 39.4
Away: 43.4
When you look at the numbers, there are clearly some differing factors you can glean from Roethlisberger’s performances both home and away. For instance, Roethlisberger’s TD-INT ratio is clearly better at home than on the road, yet his average completion percentage is higher on the road compared to that at Heinz Field.
What I see when looking at all of these is more consistent data. Now, don’t take that last sentence to believe this data is good, because we know it should be better, but there is more consistency from Roethlisberger both at home and on the road.
We all can agree Roethlisberger’s stats should be slightly, if not drastically, better than what they are, but Steelers fans have seen less of a trend of Roethlisberger playing poorly on the road than in years past.
The question now remains, as the Steelers prepare for their Week 16 game vs. the New Orleans Saints in the Big Easy this Sunday, will Roethlisberger’s 2018 statistics both at home and on the road be good enough to beat Drew Brees and company? Only time will tell, but this may be the end of ‘Road Ben’ — at least for this season.