People have said before that Ben Roethlisberger and all this passing game stuff has destroyed 40 years of Steelers football.
No, the game has adapted... see lets break this down...
1. there was a time in football when the forward pass was illegal... all plays were run plays... all coaching was built around the run game.
2. When they added the forward pass, it was a highly risky thing to do... almost on par with going for it on 4th down. The fumble and coverage rules (or lack thereof) put this heavily in favor of the defense making a play. Lets also point out that blocking wasn't the same as it is today. It was almost impossible to keep some players off the QB. Compounding issues was that there was little skill in the whole pass and catch area, and that teams still played ironman so specialization was not really in play yet.
All of this led to coached Loathe to use it... there were far more bad things that could happen than good things...
3. Now we have:
-highly sophisticated pass blocking schemes and rules that basically allow most holding.
-rules that disallow many QB hits and several old methods for getting past blocks
-liberalized Pass interference and illegal contact rules that make interceptions way more difficult
-Inability to separate wr from the ball with heavy, high hits
-Sophisticated pass schemes that adapt to coverage
-heavy specialization that allows smaller guys whose only skill is quick, fast, shifty cutting to excel without getting exploded.
4. On top of this front 7's have gotten bigger and faster than ever... guys with skill sets like Gale sayers who were magnificent back in the day have been all but marginalized by the size/speed increase on defense. This has led to fewer high end rushers in the league these days.
5. All of this has leaned the game away from defensive rush first football... in the past the gameplan was to keep it close and take a few shots at the big play with your playmakers, then hold the game with the defense and run the clock out.
This is all but impossible in this day and age. If the refs call all the downfield stuff they can, its impossible to cover everyone in this format. Teams can score almost at will when they play aggressive football, as they do when down late in the game... its much harder to run out a clock against a bigger, faster front seven looking for the run.
This has led most everyone with a QB worth a damn to eschew the old school run first plan. Some teams still are too conservative because the coaching trees are still stocked with guys following the older and more conservative coaching philosophies.
the bottom line is you still have to have a good run game to keep teams honest, and because you will run into teams with a good secondary but a bad run defense that can be exploited, but to play a power run game is just suicide these days. There is a reason that a good big back like Blount has bounced around the league so much.
Sad but true, the old school football is basically dead