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What in the world is Randy Fichtner doing?




Let's rehash, I wanted Todd Haley gone out of Pittsburgh for two reasons I was tired of Tunnel Screens or Bubble Screens and he and Ben wasn't hitting it off. Did Haley keep Ben alive and relatively healthy? The answer is a resounding Heck Yeah. Let's be honest though, the offense stalled out before reaching pay dirt. Between the 20's, dang near unstoppable but we couldn't finish, we couldn't punch it in.

Fast forward to the Fichtner hiring. Some warned that this was a bad idea but I wasn't having it. We all know it was Ben's guy but shouldn't a probable Hall of Fame quarterback have some say in who will be in charge of play calling? I thought so at the time - maybe not so much now but more on that later. It looked as if things were improving, the Red Zone touchdown rate had a significant improvement and Ben was happy. You want your franchise quarterback wanting to come to work and enjoying the game. Right?

Now we have Ben's injury but before that we had the New England game in which we laid a huge deuce? If Ben was injured during or before that then maybe the narrative changes but Ben played in his lone preseason game and looked decent once things got going. So I'm ruling out the injury as the reason for the turd left in Foxborough.

What I'm getting at is the game plan and play calling of one Randy Fichtner. Case in point is the Wildcat Half Back Pass that set up Baltimore's first touchdown. Yes the WildCat worked against the Bengals but we are talking the Bengals here. Baltimore vs Steelers is a different game always has been always will be, but it's more of where we ran that play and when it was run. Why?

The other head scratching moment was a 2nd and 1 from the seven, we go Jumbo package with Banner and Finney reporting in as eligible. Direct snap to Samuels for a 5 yard loss. I could be wrong here but would Baltimore be thinking pass after the first quagmire with Samuels. Who were we fooling here? I'll tell ya - ourselves. We end up with another Field Goal, so much for Red Zone efficiency.

It's not just those two plays it's the fact that after the decent backup job by Mason Rudolph in the game that Ben went out with the elbow injury, come out with a putrid game plan the following week against San Francisco. The fact that when Rudolph went out he allowed Hodges to throw down the field after Rudolph was relegated to throws that went for two yards and then the next pass resulted in a loss of -4 on the opening drive against Baltimore. I'll then remind of the WildCat pass on the next possession and leave you with this question - What the heck is Randy Fichtner doing?

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