National sports talk show host Rich Eisen was on the fence about the Steelers before Saturday’s game against the Detroit Lions.
Eisen said his reaction was a “shrugging emoji” seeing the team being either able to win 12 games or lose 12 games, but that isn’t the case after he saw quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s play.
“He looked Hall of Fame, spry, like 'nobody’s talking about me, nobody’s looking at us' and a guy who has a big reason and hand in the Steelers success offensively this year also took a screen pass 46 yards,” said Eisen.
Roethlisberger was 8 for 10 on Saturday with 137 yards and two touchdowns, both to rookie tight end Pat Freiermuth.
While Roethlisberger only played three series and left late in the first quarter and it was against the Lions, Eisen believes if Freiermuth and running back Najee Harris can relate to Big Ben and they can balance the offense along with wide receivers Diontae Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool, “why not?” “Don’t sleep on the Steelers.”
Defensively the Steelers are still stacked, in Eisen’s opinion.
Eisen also jokingly says that whatever Roethlisberger is doing, “he’s eating Primanti Bros. ice cream, whatever he’s doing right now on the Big Ben, the BB7 systems or whatever he’s doing, he looks good man!”
“I saw a guy who looked terrific, he looked like the Roethlisberger of old, like running around and moving around in the pocket, that shake and buying time and just standing back there and finding his guys,” added Eisen.
Of course the one thing that Eisen didn’t talk about what the offensive line and how shaky they have appeared in preseason games. That is one area on the team that could derail any offensive success in 2021.