Roethlisberger Exposed By Tik Tokker
So a guy on Tik Tok, @theoashnfl, Thinks that he has figured out a way to tell when the Steelers are going to run the ball by Big Ben's footwork. Ben who has been focusing on a diet recently may want to check this out.
In the video, you see that Theo Ash claims that when Big Ben's back heel is up it is a pass, when it is flat it is a run. Now the thing is these indicators of a pass or run would be very valuable to defensive coordinators but I think there may be a bit of confirmation bias. I think Theo Ash maybe just using cut-ups that confirm his theory. In these 2018 highlights against the Buccaneers, Ben had several plays that disprove this guy's theory.
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To his credit, Ben does change whether his heel is up or down but it is more an indicator of how tired he is in my opinion than pass or run. Now I know we make fun of Ben a lot but to his credit, he does use his footwork to throw off defenses. If you go to 1:16 in that twitter video above which I found in this youtube video that should cut directly to the play.
You see he has his right foot forward which is very hard to throw quickly to the right side of the field with as a righty. His stance here is flat-footed and indicates he wants to open up to his left and give the running back the ball or throw to the left side of the field off playaction.
Because of this, the boundary-side corner is playing with serious cushion because no way Big ole ben gonna flip the hips and get that ball to his AB quickly.
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But Big ben essentially tricks the defense with his feet, throws a quick screen to Antonio Brown for the first down-and touchdown.
My point is this, Big Ben is conscious of his feet, these guys are professionals. If this was that big of a tell the video analyst interns that pour over tape for some of these teams looking for a gem like this to get hired in the NFL would have picked it up and it would be heavily exploited. Even if it was true something like this would travel around the league fast and get back to Ben. There's a ton of bluffing in football and Ben might be showing a tell in order to lull everyone into a false sense of confidence.