FF Q&A

Coach Bailey will now take questions from the members of the media:

What is being done to address the lack of production from the wide receivers recently? Isn't it fair to say that the victory on Sunday covered up the fact that the WRs on this team are inconsistent at best?
Lack of production from the wide receivers might be our biggest problem right now. You’re right, last week’s win sort of masked the problem. We won by a margin of almost 20 points despite the fact that our starting wide receivers only scored a combined 1 point. That’s unacceptable. I think that the receivers as a group have been a problem spot for us all season. We’ve been plagued by injuries, sure but in general, they need to do better, but I’m also going to take some of the blame here. We’ve had some of the wrong players on the field, so I need to spend some time with the group in practice and with the assistant coaches and our team trainers and doctors to make the best decision about who’s healthy enough, who’s ready to play and who really should step onto the field on Sunday. Chris Henry, who scored 14 points last week, is a guy who’s been producing from our bench who might see some PT.

Will the TE position be addressed considering he will be facing an angry Baltimore defense next week?
Yes, we’re looking at the tight end position, evaluating our options with Steve (Heiden) as well as the free agent market. Steve’s new to our team, and he’s got a tough game this weekend, matching up with an obviously angry Baltimore defense this week. So we need to check into who’s available and who might do the best job for us. But Steve’s a great guy, he’s ranked 9th at his position, so we’ll see. We parted ways with Marcus (Pollard) last week, he’s having a tough season and I wish him well.

Talk about what Ben Roethlisberger brings to the table in his second year in the league, as opposed to his rookie season?
Basically, he always had the drive to be a winner, but now he’s got the actual game experience to make that happen. He was our backup last year and really didn’t see a lot of action with Peyton (Manning) having the record-breaking season that he did. This season, he’s really made this team his own and stood out as a leader. He’s our team’s point leader and averages almost 20 points a game. Ben’s the guy we look to when the game’s on the line. I know he’s anxious to face off against Peyton this week and give it his all. We’re going to evaluate the knee injury, but I know he’s going to go if he can.

If Ben Roethlisberger ends up missing time due to injury, will you consider Charlie Batch as an option at QB?
(Laughs) Who would have thought it could come to that, eh? Seriously though, if Ben isn’t able to play on Sunday, we’ll be going with Trent Dilfer, our backup quarterback. Ben’s injury isn’t as serious as it could have been, it’s just a hyperextended knee. It’s great news that it wasn’t something worse, as it looked at the end of the game. Ben’s looking good, but if for some reason he’s not ready, Trent will be.