Dixon’s Big Chance

It looks like it’s Dennis Dixon’s chance to shine. What he does with it figures to have a lot to do with when he’ll get another chance.

Coach Tomlin didn’t go into detail about how he’d use the quarterbacks on Sunday. But the fact that it’s nationally televised is a really big deal for Dixon. His chance to earn some national exposure. The NFL Sunday Night game usually draws the largest audience of the week. Coach did say that Dixon will get some of the repetitions with the first-team offense.

Dixon is in his 3rd year. He was a Steelers fifth-round draft choice from Oregon in 2008. He’s posted the team’s best passing stats to so far this pre-season. He’s completed 13-of-15 for 210 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions, which is good for a passer rating of 141.0, while also rushing for 58 yards on 11 attempts.

Tomlin said, “Dennis Dixon has done great with the opportunities we provided him to this point. We think he is deserving of some first-team snap opportunities with our people, hopefully vs. their people but we don’t have control over who they play and when. We’re looking forward to him taking advantage of that. I know he’s probably excited about it. There’s great scarcity with first-team snaps in the preseason, and we’ve been very thoughtful and diligent about how we hand those out. We’ve given them to Byron Leftwich, who has taken advantage of his. The young guy in Dennis, who we aspired to give a bunch of snaps to, has taken advantage of those snaps and is deserving of an opportunity to play with the ones. Dennis has been more consistent than he has in the past. And really, I expected him to be. It’s the natural maturation process of any player. You can say that about a bunch of young players on our football team, Tony Hills has been more consistent than he has in the past. Kraig Urbik has been more consistent than he has been in the past. Keenan Lewis has been more consistent than he has been in the past. Dennis is just like those guys, except he just happens to play quarterback. He has been more consistent than he has in the past so he’s getting increased opportunities like all those other guys I mentioned.”

“It’s based on merit, and I was hopeful he would have earned it by this week because I knew this week was going to be the week where we would have an extended opportunity to go ones on ones in a preseason football game,” said Tomlin.

Make the most of this opportunity Dennis!