Big Ben not wild about Wildcat attack

By Scott Brown | ESPN.com

PITTSBURGH -- Mike Tomlin remains open -- at least publicly -- to keeping the Wildcat in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive repertoire.

But Ben Roethlisberger sounds like he wouldn’t mind if the Steelers shelved the gimmick out of which they ran four plays in their 19-16 win against the Baltimore Ravens.

“I don’t like to go over and just be split out wide and take a chance that a (defensive back) is going to come up,” Roethlisberger told 93.7 The Fan Tuesday during his weekly radio show. “I don’t think we’ll see a lot of it.”

Tomlin is keeping his options open with the Wildcat if only to keep the Oakland Raiders guessing. Another reason he isn’t ready to ditch the attack: it is relatively easy to install during game preparations.

Tomlin said the three runs that Le'Veon Bell made after taking a direct snap from center and his hand-off to wideout Antonio Brown are in the Steelers’ base offense.

“The play themselves aren’t new. The window dressing is,” Tomlin said. “It doesn’t require a bunch of work from a practice standpoint in that regard. Some of the formations and pre-snap movements is walk-through, classroom-type work so it’s not as intensive of an endeavor as it appears to be.”

Roethlisberger, for his part, isn’t just leery about getting leveled by an opposing defensive back when the Steelers are in the Wildcat. He also has concerns about Bell taking direct snaps even though the rookie running back handled all of his ball exchanges flawlessly against the Ravens.

"To take a shotgun snap, even as a quarterback, there’s a chance of fumbles and things happening and we do it all the time,” Roethlisberger said. “So I think your chances of something bad happening goes up when you do that Wildcat stuff because it’s just unnatural, things that (running backs) are just not used to doing. It makes you nervous but it did good things for us.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_/id/75718/big-ben-not-wild-about-wildcat-attack

Ben is getting gun-shy in his old age. Too many hits in the pocket.