The Steelers and Patriots each have six Super Bowl wins, tied for the most in NFL history. Together they have appeared in 36 percent of the Super Bowls ever played. They’ve won almost one-quarter of them. And there are no signs of either team slowing down.
They are the two winningest teams in the NFL this decade. The Patriots have 113 victories since 2010 and the Steelers are next with 94.
Here’s something else they have in common: They have a propensity to pass – a lot.
Perhaps no two teams in the modern-day NFL have embraced the passing game quite like the Steelers and Patriots the past few years. Ben Roethlisberger led the league with 675 pass attempts last season. That was the fourth-most attempts in a season in NFL history and it is 37 more attempts than Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has ever had in one season.
And Brady’s right arm has miles on it. Many miles. He led the league in pass attempts in 2017 with 581 and has nearly 10,000 pass attempts in his 20-year career.
But no quarterback that leads the NFL in pass attempts has ever won a Super Bowl during that season. Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford set the NFL record with 727 passes in 2012, and the Lions won four games.
Teams with lopsided pass-run ratios, in fact, rarely make the playoffs. The Steelers threw the ball 67.4 percent of the time last season. Only the Packers (67.5) had a higher pass-run ratio. They also failed to make the playoffs last season.
Only three of the top 10 teams in the NFL in pass attempts last season made the playoffs. The same number made it to the postseason in 2016 and only two of the top 10 passing teams qualified for the playoffs in 2015 and 2017.
It begs the question: Do some teams become too enamored with the passing game?
“If he led the league every year, then we could be having this conversation,” veteran center Maurkice Pouncey said. “But every year is different.”
The Steelers have had successful regular seasons in recent years by going with the pass-heavy approach, but they’ve had their most playoff success when they’ve had more balance between their passing and running games.
The Steelers were second in the league in pass attempts in 2017 and sixth in 2014, but they failed to win a playoff game either season despite playing host to games at Heinz Field.
In 2015 and 2016, they were 13th and 15th in the league in pass attempts. They won three playoff games during those seasons and advanced to the AFC championship in ’16.
Offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner is aware of his pass-run ratio, but he never lets it dictate his approach to game-planning or calling a game. He views offensive balance in a different way.
“It’s the ability to do what you want to do as often as you can sustain it,” Fichtner said. “To me, balance is getting first downs and finding ways to eke out 10 yards in three plays. It can be more run or more pass. We have to get it done some way or the other. That’s the job.”
The Patriot Way
Former Broncos quarterback John Elway led the NFL in passing attempts twice during his Hall of Fame career, but he didn’t win a Super Bowl until the Broncos finally found a running game. In 1997 and 1998, in the twilight of Elway’s Hall of Fame career, he led the Broncos to Super Bowl victories after losing three Super Bowls early in his career with offenses that were built around the passing game.
Those late ’90s Broncos teams were built around running back Terrell Davis. Elway threw the ball 502 times during the ’97 season, which ranked eighth in the league. In ’98, he was 14th in the league in pass attempts.
There are many other examples like Elway through the years. Dan Marino led the NFL in pass attempts five times and never won a Super Bowl. Drew Bledsoe led the league three consecutive years from 1994-96 and never won a Super Bowl.
Super Bowl champions tend to develop balanced offenses. Or, at the very least, show an ability to change on the fly.
Take the 2018 Patriots, for instance.
The Patriots still passed a lot in certain weeks, but they threw the ball just 54.9 percent of the time. They had the third-most running attempts in the NFL. And late in the season, after consecutive losses to the Dolphins and Steelers, the Patriots turned even more to their running game in the final two games of the regular season and playoffs.
After attempting just 19 rushing attempts in a 17-10 loss to the Steelers in a mid-December game at Heinz Field, the Patriots offense did a 180. They ran 47 times the next week in a 24-12 win against the Bills. They finished out the regular season by running it 30 times in a 38-3 blowout of the Jets.
It was more of the same in the playoffs. They averaged 38 rushing attempts in their three postseason games. Brady, of course, remained involved and made big plays at opportune times throughout the playoffs, but it was an offense that did not exclusively rely on his passing brilliance.
In the AFC championship against the Chiefs, Brady threw the ball 46 times, but the Patriots ran it 48 times in their overtime victory. They ran it 10 times on their opening drive of the game and possessed the ball for 44 of the game’s 64 minutes.
In the Super Bowl, Brady threw it just three more times than the Patriots ran it (35-32) in another game where they held the ball for six more minutes than the Rams.
“It’s whatever we think is going to work,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “If it’s the run, then we run. If it’s throwing, we throw. I don’t think it’s that important as long as we move the ball and score.”
But it was undoubtedly a different approach. The Patriots threw the ball 60 percent of the time in 2017 when Brady led the league in pass attempts. Last season was the first time since 2010 that the Patriots threw the ball less than 55 percent of the time on offense.
Offensive trends come and go in the NFL. A return to power football probably isn’t forthcoming anytime soon, but Roethlisberger took notice of what the Patriots did during their Super Bowl run.
“Having the ability to change is always huge,” Roethlisberger said. “Maybe not for a whole season, but for a game or a little run. When teams are expecting one thing, and you can just completely flip the script and become dominant in another phase of the game, it speaks volumes for coaching and playing and players buying into it.”
It would appear the Steelers would need to buy into it more than they did last season when they were 31st in the league in rushing. Fichtner is excited to see what James Conner can provide in his second season as a starter. He made the Pro Bowl last season. He’s also expecting big things from Conner’s backup, Jaylen Samuels, who rushed for 142 yards in last year’s win over the Patriots.
Still, if Roethlisberger has to throw the ball 675 times again this season, and the Steelers win 13 games, Fichtner won’t bat an eye.
“It’s always going to be about winning at the end of the day,” he said. “Every year, your team is different. If it’s scoring less points and protecting the ball more, then so be it. If it’s throwing more, so be it. If it’s running it more, so be it.
“At the end of the day it’s finding a way to win for our team. Our guys are really into that right now. I’d be more concerned about ball protection. If we protect it, we’ll be a tough out.”
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
First Published: September 6, 2019, 2:20 p.m.
