For a team with a Pro Bowl QB that’s coming off a franchise record setting year and that has already led the team to two Super Bowls in 5 years you wouldn’t think there would be so much drama surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers’ and it’s starting QB, but as the NFL online wagering season fast approaches it seems there’s a new development nearly every day.
As anyone that’s made an online wager on the NFL in the past year knows the Steelers normal starting QB, Ben Roethlisberger has been suspended for four games for behaving like a dirt bag in the offseason. As such, the team has been forced to find a temporary starter in his stead. So they signed former Steelers and back up QB Byron Leftwich to start during the month that Big Ben will be serving his suspension.
Leftwich is an experienced NFL veteran/starter and everything seemed alright. The only problem is that Leftwich sprained his knee in the fourth and final preseason game of the year and now is out indefinitely. This means that the Steelers now have gone from four healthy QBs to just two in the span of a week and the starting job now falls to second-year man Dennis Dixon.
This is both an exciting and frightening prospect for Steelers fans, depending on which expect you ask. There are those online wagering analysts that believe Dixon will be fine considering that the offensive game plan will be simplified and feature heavy doses of the run game during his custodial watch behind center.
There are other online wagering analysts that even think Dixon is an improvement over Leftwich because of his running ability. Dixon’s ability to scramble adds another dimension to the offense and opens up doors for both the passing game and the running game.
And then there are the other critics who don’t think Dixon is ready to start in the NFL and point to his disastrous preseason start against a very poor Denver defense in which he threw 2 INTs and completed just 9-16 of his pass attempts.
It’s hard to say how Dixon will play in the season opener versus Atlanta, but he’s obviously a step down from Roethlisberger and Steelers fans can only hope that he’s a step up from Lefwich.