Nov 3, 2012 5 min read

Dink.

Dunk.

Those two words just keep coming up in discussions about the Steelers. About a week and a half ago, Ben Roethlisberger referred to the Steelers’ offense as a dink-and-dunk offense and then, after his comment was repeated a few million times on the internet, he went out of his way a few days ago to say that he never meant that as a criticism and that he loved new offensive coordinator Todd Haley’s offense.

Near the end of the week, Haley said that he had no problem with his style being referred to as dink and dunk.

The Steelers are 4-3, Roethlisberger isn’t throwing interceptions, and he hardly ever gets sacked. So it’s hard to find anybody who’s willing to complain about the D&D – not even Mike Wallace, who has gone from averaging 20 yards per catch in the first half of 2011 to 12.8 this season.

Wallace said this week that he’s happy, even though he has run eight go-routes all season, including three as a decoy. He said he ran about five per game last season.

Congratulations to Wallace for singing the company song, but I’m not buying it for a minute. This is a guy who turned down $50 million because he thought he could do much better as a free agent next year.

They aren’t passing out a lot of $50 million contracts to guys who average 12.8 yards per catch.

I saw a stat last week that got my attention. Roethlisberger’s passes are going an average of 4.85 yards in the air.

That’s about 14 feet.

A receiver could run that route in your dining room.

All of this brings me to a philosophical question: How much entertainment and excitement are fans willing to sacrifice in order to win? The players and the ownership are all about winning because it makes a major difference in their lives, but what about fans and media?

What we have here is a future Hall of Fame quarterback and a wide receiver, who may be the fastest player in the league, who together are hooking up for plays that average less than half the distance between home plate and the pitcher’s mound.

And some of that comes after the catch.

So, Rod Barajas was asked by the Pirates to throw the ball twice as far after every pitch as Roethlisberger is asked to throw on an average pass play.

I know. Nobody cares. They’re winning.

But that’s my point. Is there a point when the end (winning) doesn’t justify the means because the means becomes too boring to watch?

I don’t know the answer to that question, and I’m sure not saying that we’ve reached that point with the 2012 Steelers. I just know I enjoyed the games more when Roethlisberger averaged 14 yards per completion instead of 11.

He’s averaging 11 now. He averaged 14 in 2005 on the way to winning a Super Bowl.

n The NFL should have made the decision to move the Steelers-Giants game to Heinz Field, even if government officials felt comfortable with having to deal with the logistics involved in staging an NFL game.

Sometimes, the paying customers have to be considered. Thousands of fans, who are holding tickets to the game, could probably give you thousands of things they need to be doing to clean up after Hurricane Sandy instead of devoting five or six hours to the Steelers and the Giants. It would have been unfair to the Giants, but there is plenty of evidence on our Northeastern shore that life isn’t fair.

n Many years ago, comedian George Carlin did a routine about the differences between the objectives of football and baseball: “In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short, bullet passes and long bombs, he marches into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in in the forward wall of the enemy defensive line.

“In baseball the object is to be safe at home. I hope I can go on home and be safe.”

There apparently was no dinking and dunking when Carlin wrote that routine.

n It’s kind of hard to imagine Knute Rockne or, say, Vince Lombardi using those words in a rousing pregame speech: “We’re gonna dink ’em, and if that doesn’t work, we’re gonna dunk ’em. We’re gonna dink, dink, dink and dunk, dunk, dunk our way up and down the field, and there’s no way they’re going to stop us.”

If the Steelers go deep into the playoffs and make this a memorable season, 2012 will go down in Steelers’ history as the year of the dink and dunk.

We’ve come a long way since the Steel Curtain.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter. His website is justwatchthegame.com.