Behind enemy lines: Does Big Ben have anything left?

As the Broncos prep for Pittsburgh, Broncos Country Tonight got the state of the Steelers from Jarrett Bailey.

After the first four games of the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers have issues.

The Steelers somehow won their season-opening game against the Buffalo Bills. Aside from that, Pittsburgh has looked bad. Namely, the offense is a mess. The rushing offense is dead last in the NFL and Ben Roethlisberger is a shell of his former self.

On Friday’s Broncos Country Tonight, Ryan Edwards and Benjamin Allbright went “behind enemy lines” to get the current status of the Steelers as they prepare to host the Denver Broncos in Week 5. The guys were joined by Jarrett Bailey, who covers the team for Pittsburgh Sports Now.

Allbright joked that Pittsburgh is now in Jacksonville Jaguars territory, and Bailey said he’s not wrong.

“It’s weird hearing this trope about how the Steelers are a legendary running team,” Bailey said. “Sure, they are historically, but ever since Le’Veon Bell left it’s not as if they’ve been this ground-and-pound team. James Conner had that one great year when Bell sat out, and ever since then they’ve been bad at running ball. This isn’t brand new. This is a three, four-year thing where they just haven’t been good at running the ball.”

Then Bailey got into the crux of the issues for the Steelers, especially against the Green Bay Packers, Big Ben.

“It’s not there anymore, guys,” Bailey said. “There’s no bullets left in the gun of Ben Roethlisberger. He’s just throwing the gun and praying at this point. At his heart of hearts, he’ll always be a gunslinger but the gunslinger has run out of ammo. And it’s sad to see, but it’s the fact of the matter right now.”

Bonus listen

MHR’s Adam Malnati joined the guys to discuss the need for the Broncos to stick with the running game and how important it is for Denver to win this game.