Roethlisberger likely to call most plays in no-huddle shotgun offense

others did it more than the Steelers at 72 percent, including the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

While not all shotgun snaps come in the no-huddle, it’s a good indication of its use. The Steelers ran 66 percent of their plays from the shotgunin 2016.

So the shotgun — a formation Chuck Noll famously refused to use for years — has become the Steelers’ base formation for taking snaps, and the no-huddle will become moreprevalent.

Roethlisberger and Fichtner Wednesday discussed just what the coordinator will say to the quarterback in his headset leading up to eachno-huddle play.

“What do you want to hear?’’ Fichtner asked, via Roethlisberger. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me not to say anything at all? Do you want me to say downand distance?”

Roethlisberger answered: “What I don’t want you to do is to yell out ‘don’t forget about this, don’t forget about the post on this play.’ Human nature, we’re going to look there.

“I told him, ‘Listen, what I’d like when I’m in there is for you to tell me, hey, Ben, you’re in the red zone, here’s your top two tendencies. Not necessarily tell me what to do but tell me here’s a tendency. Or, Ben, third and long, remember their top tendency.’ Just kind of some reminders as we’re going because when you’re out in the heat of it, you’re not always remembering what their No. 1 thirddown coverage is or second third-down coverage, things like that.”

Haley and Bruce Arians before him went hot and cold withthe no huddle.

“There were times I think you pitched [Haley] for it and you wanted to get it, and there were times it was smarter not to. Same thing with B.A. There were times it was resisted, which is understandable. Coordinators are coordinators for a reason — they want to call the plays. So there’s no hard feelings when itcomes to that.”

Fichtner, though, is more amenable to going with it, and why not? The Steelers not only have some of the best talent in the league on offense with seven Pro Bowlers from last season, but nearly all of them have been together for a while. Only wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Washington and tight end Vance McDonald are relatively new to the offense.

Nothing makes the nohuddle go like talent combined with experience in the offense.

With the versatility of Le’Veon Bell at running back, they also do not have to substitute much, and that allows them to prevent the defensefrom substituting. They can put Bell in the backfield or split him out wide, move him, throw to him, pitch to him,hand it off.

It’s one big reason the Steelers were so intent on keeping Bell another season despite the $14.55 million cost.

“All of us have been in this offense so long,’’ Roethlisberger said. “We understand it, we understand each other and when you’ve got that continuity, it’s easier to do last-minute hand signals, last-minute calls, things like that.”