Alright. I love Roethlisberger and unlike Antdrew I'm not going to throw him under the bus for everything that's wrong in Steeler-town. Haley drives me crazy but I won't blame him entirely either. I think they both have some issues to sort out individually and together.
1) Although it pains me to say it. Ben does seem (to my novice eyes) to often have a pre-determined idea of who he's going to. It's not that he doesn't look guys off etc. It's just that he quite often doesn't take what's open or seem to look through all the progressions to see a guy wide open. Now true - as I mentioned in another thread, I think he's way less mobile and for the first time ever he has a clock ticking in his head when the ball gets into his hands. Maybe that has something to do with it, but right now I don't think he has much faith in too many of the receivers other than Brown and that's gotta change. He's GOT to trust the other guys and let them do their jobs. This offense CANNOT be explosive if it relies solely on Bell running 35 times a game and Ben forcing the ball to Brown 15 to 20 times a game. The Steelers HAVE to get back to that 6 different receivers thing. That will force defenses to play honest.
2) For the love of all that is holy coach Haley, program in some ******* relief routes. And Ben, ******* take them. The defenses won't know what to to with Roethlisberger throwing a dump off for 5 yards to a leaking RB. That'll freak them right out. I can see the linebackers now. "WTF man? Did he just dump off a pass?" "**** man, can he DO THAT?"
Bryant needs 1 big game to get himself right and happy with the world. And it will help remind the rest of the league what the Steelers have under the hood. Haley et. al. should be making up a game plan to figure out how to feature Bryant sooner than later in order to send a wake-up message to the league that they need to cover ALL the receivers as well as the run. The Steelers don't HAVE to score 30 points a game, they need to make the defenses believe absolutely in their heart that they could whenever they wanted to.