The Pittsburgh Steelers will start Michael Vick with Ben Roethlisberger out for Week 4 with a knee injury and head coach Mike Tomlin said Big Ben could miss a stretch of games this season. The Steelers have strong fantasy football starter options even with Vick playing, as names like Le'Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, Heath Miller and Markus Wheaton could see a lot of action.
Bell is back for his second game following a suspension and the timing could not be more perfect for the Steelers. The Steelers offense has been one of the best in football this season (and dating back to last year) and now that Roethlisberger is out, the team will be relying on Bell even more than they have in the past couple seasons. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, there is "no timetable" yet for Roethlisberger's return after suffering an MCL sprain and bone bruise.
Roethlisberger was injured in the game against the St. Louis Rams after a hit from Mark Barron and now he could be out for at least a month. According to ESPN.com, initial reports have Roethlisberger looking at a 4-6 week recovery timetable, but that is not official. The team signed Vick earlier in the summer as a backup after Bruce Gradkowski was injured and now the Steelers are going to have to rely on him to get through the first half of the season.
Roethlisberger once again was putting up great numbers this season, as he was completing 75 percent of his passes and already had nearly 1000 yards passing. Roethlisberger has four TDs, two picks and 912 passing yards in three games and he really picked up where he left off last season. Last year was a huge season for Roethlisberger with 32 TDs and just nine picks with nearly 5000 passing yards and that raised expectations even more for this season.
Those clearly will be tempered a bit with Vick coming in to start now for Tomlin, but the head coach said to the media this week that the offense will be geared towards Vick and that the team will ""bring the game to him." Bell likely will play a major role in things and DeAngelo Williams also could see some carries if the team pushes the run over the pass this week against the Ravens. The Ravens are coming in desperate at 0-3 and the Steelers could almost put them out of the race altogether with a win on Thursday night.
Bell has only played in one game this season, but he has made a major impact already, putting up over 120 total yards and scoring a TD. Bell had 19 rushes for 62 yards and also added seven catches for 70 yards in the game on Sunday. Bell had a monster season last year with 11 total touchdowns and over 2000 total yards rushing and receiving. Brown is always a strong starter option and he will be the focus in the passing game for Vick. Last week Brown excelled again with 11 catches for 108 yards on 13 targets.
Check here for more on the Steelers and the Roethlisberger injury.
