Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger hinted on Wednesday in his interview with Rich Eisen that he expects to use more no-huddle now that Todd Haley has taken over as offensive coordinator. I have had quite a few request to pull the stats of Roethlisberger over the course of his career when running the no-huddle offense and I have finally compiled the raw stats from the all of the gamebooks dating back to 2004 with Roethlisberger under center. Late me emphasize that these stats are by no means considered official, as they are pulled from the NFL gamebooks. I have noticed in my own charting projects over the last two seasons that they have been pretty much on the money in regard to listing no-huddle correctly in the play-by-play, but there could be a missed play or two along the way.
I have compiled these stats in two tables, overall stats and 4th quarter stats. These stats also include playoff games in addition and all spikes were removed from the pass attempts. During his first two seasons in the league, 2004 and 2005, Roethlisberger is not listed as running a no-huddle play and that is not too terribly hard to believe. In fact, in 2004 the Steelers are listed as running just 2 no-huddle plays in total and that was with Tommy Maddox under center and they both came in the game against the Buffalo Bills according to the gamebooks. In 2005 the Steelers are not listed as running any no-huddle plays.
Since his rookie season Roethlisberger is listed as running 269 total plays in the no-huddle offense. He has completed 115 of 179 attempted passes for a career 64% completion ratio. His 1343 passing yards equates to a solid 7.5 yards per attempt using these raw stats. Looking at his stats using the no-huddle in the 4th quarter of games, Roethlisberger is 51 of 72 passing for 546 yards. That equates to a 71% completion ratio and a 7.58 yards per attempt number. He was under center for 102 no-huddle plays in the 4th quarter in total, which equates to 38% of all no-huddle plays he has been under center for.
If you are into quarterback ratings, Roethlisberger has a career rating in the no-huddle offense of 86.4 and in the 4th quarter a rating of 85.8. A better way to look at his numbers would be to use DVOA, but I am willing to bet that these numbers would show well in that stat. I might work on that for a future post.
Now quite a few things could have contributed to a lack of overall no-huddle over the years. As I researched in the last post, former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians stated that the injuries to the offensive line had some to do with it not being run very often last year. Another factor could be that the Steelers really have not had a very athletic line over the last few years outside of center Maurkice Pouncey. Also the last few seasons we have seen the addition of several young receivers in Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders. Roethlisberger also has been beat up quite a bit over the last few years and keep in mind he missed the first four games of the 2010 season. These are not excuses and we do not know exactly how much or little of each above played into the little use of the no-huddle. Most will say that Arians was just stubborn, but that would be as speculative as anything else I mentioned above.
The raw stats show that Roethlisberger has had success running the no-huddle offense over the years. The receivers are now another year older and the offensive line figures to be at least a little more athletic than it has in years. At least a little younger and smarter with the addition of David DeCastro and Marcus Gilbert now has a year under his belt as well. In my next post I will look at a similar breakdown of offenses under Todd Haley dating back to his time with the Arizona Cardinals so we can see how often he used the no-huddle offense overall as opposed to just the fourth quarter.
Once again please keep in mind these are really raw stats and I am at the mercy of the gamebooks when compiling them. If you see any mistakes, please let me know about them.
Ben Roethlisberger Career No-huddle Passing Stats
| YEAR | PLAYS | ATT | COMP | COMP % | YDS | YPA | TD | INT | SPK | SCK | RATE |
| 2004 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 2005 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 2006 | 32 | 21 | 13 | 62% | 131 | 6.24 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 95.5 |
| 2007 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 67% | 41 | 6.83 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 86.1 |
| 2008 | 57 | 36 | 23 | 64% | 239 | 6.64 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 69.1 |
| 2009 | 50 | 37 | 28 | 76% | 328 | 8.86 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 120.1 |
| 2010 | 64 | 41 | 26 | 63% | 313 | 7.63 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 92.8 |
| 2011 | 54 | 38 | 21 | 55% | 291 | 7.66 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 58.1 |
| TOTAL | 269 | 179 | 115 | 64% | 1343 | 7.50 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 15 | 86.4 |
Ben Roethlisberger Career 4th Quarter No-huddle Passing Stats
| YEAR | PLAYS | ATT | COMP | COMP % | YDS | YPA | TD | INT | SPK | SCK | RATE |
| 2004 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 2005 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 2006 | 23 | 18 | 12 | 67% | 139 | 7.72 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 108.3 |
| 2007 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 67% | 13 | 4.33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 75.7 |
| 2008 | 18 | 13 | 10 | 77% | 123 | 9.46 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 73.6 |
| 2009 | 15 | 10 | 8 | 80% | 71 | 7.10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 96.3 |
| 2010 | 22 | 16 | 11 | 69% | 137 | 8.56 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 69.0 |
| 2011 | 17 | 12 | 8 | 67% | 63 | 5.25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 79.5 |
| TOTAL | 102 | 72 | 51 | 71% | 546 | 7.58 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 85.8 |
