The Evolution of Ben Roethlisberger Into a Yearly QB1

1,498 yards.

At the end of the 2013 season, Antonio Brown finished the year with an astounding near 1500 yard season that came out almost entirely out of nowhere, finishing second to Josh Gordon's even more unanticipated year. It would come as the byproduct of the second best season of Ben Roethlisberger's career, earning him his 3rd top 8 fantasy finish amongst QBs. After two years of the Steelers seeming to decline, they were immediately on the rise with the future looking bright as Le'Veon Bell was expected to start 2014 healthy (he began his rookie year with a lisfranc for those that don't recall) and an offensive line that lost Maurkice Pouncey in the first game of the year was about to have him back, completely healthy.

Ben Roethlisberger's 2014 would go down as the best year of his career. Finally finding a good home in the Todd Haley offense, Big Ben paid dividends to fantasy owners by putting together a 4952 yard season (just over 600 yards more than his previous best) and 32 touchdowns (which matched his career high in 2007). Those numbers also helped put together a league leading 1698 receiving yards for Antonio Brown and 854 receiving yards for Le'Veon Bell, which would lead all RBs. Even Heath Miller would provide strong support in this offense, posting the 3rd highest yardage output of his career at 761, good enough for 9th best amongst TEs. All this together, resulted in Ben Roethlisberger having the first top 5 finish of his career.

Editor’s Note: If you’re looking for a new, awesome, highly customizable and free option for year-round commissioner & dynasty leagues, something more capable than Yahoo, better looking than CBS, and built from the ground up with fantasy football in mind, play free fantasy football with our friends at Fleaflicker. Sign up your league on Fleaflicker, and get a Full Season Premium Subscription for FREE.

How Can Ben Roethlisberger Remain a Top 5 Fantasy QB?

In order to put together an even better year than last year, Roethlisberger would have to break his career records again. In order to do that, it means one of three scenarios have to occur:

1. Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell again lead the league in receiving yardage for their positions.
2. Martavis Bryant, Markus Wheaton and Heath Miller are able to make up the difference for however many yards Antonio Brown and Le'Veon aren't able to match from last year.
3. Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell beat or match their own career years, while Martavis Bryant, Markus Wheaton, and Heath Miller's combined contribution increases.

Let's not beat around the bush, assuming a progression from both Wheaton and Bryant to come out in the same year while Miller, Brown, and Bell manage to repeat their years is an incredibly low possibility. Even expecting Wheaton and Bryant to progress enough to make up for whatever yards Brown, Bell, and Miller fail to live to up to doesn't seem like the smart bet unless you're riding on the hype that a young project who was seldom used last year is ready to become a significant part of the offense in his second year. Which means, assuming Brown, Bell, and Miller only lose 200 yards each (which is a loss of about 12 yards per game), that Bryant is primed for an 1100 yardage year while Wheaton maintains his 644 yard contribution.

Even expecting Brown and Bell to lead the league again seems farfetched. Only 6 receivers since 1970 have had multiple 1500+ yard seasons (with Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, and Andre Johnson being the only ones with more than two) and in that same time period only 6 running backs have ever had more than one 700 receiving yardage season, with Marshall Faulk being the only one to have multiple 800 yardage years.

All this also ignores the two major outliers of last year in Big Ben's career, the back-to-back 6 touchdown games that occurred in the middle of the season against the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens. So on top of career years for major offensive contributors, you had a two game stretch of possessed football. If we treated those two games as outliers and replaced them with Roethlisberger's averages for 2014, Ben would have finished last year with 4673 yards and 22 TDs, making him QB13.

So far, i've focussed mainly on yardage. That might seem strange being that Quarterback value is much more heavily weighted towards touchdowns, but being able to move the offense is one of the most significant parts of getting touchdowns. Last year, with the highest yardage total of Ben Roethlisberger's career (while also having the runner up to the rushing title playing with him), he was only able to match his career high 32 TDs. He even had multiple games with 0 passing touchdowns and had 8 total games with 1 or less.

Ben Roethlisberger comes off the board as QB6 at the time of writing this. The Pittsburgh Steelers are a great team, but are they great enough to beat volume-regression? Is Big Ben great enough to take those 12 touchdowns he had in those 2 games and spread them amongst an entire year? In order for that to even happen, what are the chances that one of the three scenarios listed above are fulfilled?

There's no way Ben Roethlisberger falls off the map. That's nearly impossible. The offense is just too good and I'm not going to pretend that's the case I'm making. However, Roethlisberger is coming off a career year at 32, with an offense that housed the leagues leading receiver and second best rusher. Buying at his 5th-6th round ADP means buying into the best year of his career being matched or beaten.

I'd rather sell.

NFL & Fantasy Football Chat Room

[iflychat_embed id="c-0" hide_user_list="yes" hide_popup_chat="no" height="400px"]