The Steelers need to rediscover their offensive identity
Their running game is getting better every week. Their passing game is getting worse. It is time that their play-calling reflects that.
Everything about the Pittsburgh Steelers offense points to a team that should not only be good at running the football, but a team that should also be eager to run the football.
They have invested heavily in the offensive line with first-round picks Broderick Jones and Troy Fautanu, bookended around second-round center Zach Frazier.
One of their most prominent and significant free agent signings in recent years was starting left guard Isaac Seumalo.
They have three capable NFL running backs in Jaylen Warren, Kenneth Gainwell and rookie Kaleb Johnson.
They employ four tight ends, including one that is such a mountain of a man that he passes as an extra offensive lineman. Sometimes they use him AND an extra offensive lineman just for shits and giggles. And it usually works.
They have an offensive coordinator whose bones have been made in the NFL by running the ball.
They have a conservative, defensive, ball control head coach that seems to prefer winning games by a razor thin margin through turnover differential and defense.
They are built to run. They are built to win with the run.
They seemingly WANT to do that. They WANT to portray themselves as a smash-mouth football team that can bully opponents and wear them down.
While their running game has not always been great this season, and while it is still pretty pedestrian from a full-season perspective, it has increasingly improved every single week. That improvement in the running game has been happening at a time where their effectiveness in the passing game has been steadily dropping.
Their play-calling and apparent offensive philosophy is not reflecting those two changes, and it is playing a major contributing role in their season suddenly slipping away from them. Again.
First, the table below looks at their week-by-week and cumulative numbers in yards per rush attempt and Net Yards Per Pass Attempt. Net Yards Per Pass Attempt take into account every passing attempt as well as sacks and yards lost on sacks. I think it’s important to include the sacks in this because, well, they are negative plays that can change drives.
In three of the past four weeks the Steelers have averaged more than 4.5 yards per rushing attempt, and outside of a brief slip in Week 9 against the Indianapolis Colts have seen their cumulative yards per attempt steadily increase. They have had some truly effective games on the ground, and a full-yard per-game better now for the season than they were after Week 3. That is a steady upward trend.
Both Warren and Gainwell are averaging more than 4.2 yards per carry for the season.
Meanwhile, look at the effectiveness of the passing game and what’s happened to it over the past four weeks. It’s going in the complete opposite direction, and outside of a three-week spike in the middle of the season where they hit some big plays, they just have not been effective. At all.
Over the past four games, a stretch where the Steelers are only 1-3, they have averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry and seen their Net Yards Per Pass Attempt drop down to only 5.4 yards per attempt.
That is bad. That is Spencer Rattler/Dillon Gabriel level bad.
Their play selection over those four weeks:
Passing plays: 145
Rushing plays: 77
That is a 65/35 split toward the pass.
Now, the counter to that might be the fact the Steelers were playing from behind in a lot of those games and NEEDED to pass. That might be true to a point. But it also doesn’t really make sense when you dig down deeper into those games. And there were some notable stretches in both the Green Bay and Los Angeles games that show just how far the Steelers have strayed away from what should be their identity.
Let’s start by going back to the Green Bay game. Specifically, the second half of the Green Bay game.
The Steelers opened the second half of that game with a nine-point lead and possession of the football. It was a chance to completely stomp them out and take control of the game. They built that nine-point lead by gashing the Packers on the ground in the second quarter. Warren and Gainwell were running over, around and through them. They were gaining significant traction.
How did the Steelers come out in the second half with that nine-point lead and possession of the ball after completely establishing the run in the first half?
Incomplete pass
Two-yard pass
Incomplete pass
They went three-and-out with three consecutive passing plays.
It is not a stretch or an exaggeration to say the entire complexion of the game changed from that point on.
On the Steelers’ next possession (after a Green Bay touchdown drive) they opened with a four-yard run by Warren. And then proceeded to pass on their next five plays before having to settle for a 56-yard Chris Boswell field goal.
Their third quarter play selection, a quarter in which they had the lead the entire time, was one rush and eight passes.
Those eight passing plays generated 37 yards of offense. Or 4.6 Net Yards Per Pass.
Green Bay responded with another touchdown drive to take a 22-19 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Even though the Steelers were now trailing, it was still only a three-point game. Getting back into the game on the ground was not only still very possible, it probably would have been preferable to chew clock and keep Jordan Love and the Packers offense off the field given the way the game had swung.
So what did the Steelers do on their next offensive series?
Sack for loss of 10 yards
Incomplete pass
Seven-yard give-up pass on 3-and-20.
Three passing plays for a net of minus-three yards.
On their first three offensive possessions of the second half they ran 11 passing plays for a net of 36 yards.
They ran one time for four yards.
Green Bay responded with another touchdown drive to pretty much put the game away.
In the second half they only ran the ball three times and gained 12 yards. They finished the game averaging 5.2 yards per carry.
They only ran it 18 times, and just one time in the third quarter where they had the lead the entire time.
They built a lead with that, and then tried to put the game in Aaron Rodgers’ hands. It failed. The defense was the biggest issue in that game for its inability to not get a single stop in the second half, but the offense abandoned what was working to keep focussing on something that was not working.
Fast forward to Sunday night in Los Angeles where the exact same thing happened.
From the very first drive in the first quarter it was apparent that Rodgers was not on his game. He looked awful. He missed open throws, overthrew players, missed potential touchdowns on a deep overthrow AND a deep under-throw and was seeing ghosts in a pocket he kept prematurely abandoning when he didn’t need to.
He finished the game averaging just 4.4 Net Yards Per Pass Attempt, which was the second week in a row he averaged under 5 Net Yards Per Pass Attempt and the third week in a row the number got worse.
While that was happening, the Steelers again averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry for the game, with Warren averaging five yards per carry.
I’m going to drill down to two more micro-levels of analysis and play-calling, both in the second half when the Steelers were still very much in the game.
On their first offensive possession, just after the defense got a huge stop coming out of the half, they opened with the following plays:
Jaylen Warren: 14-yard run
Jaylen Warren: 5-yard run
Jaylen Warren: 3-yard run
That is 22 yards on three carries, leaving them with a 3rd-and-2 situation. Given the way the game was being played at that point, a 3rd-and-2 run seemed manageable. I would have kept running it until the Chargers showed they could stop it.
The Steelers’ play:
Aaron Rodgers sack
Late in the third quarter Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker doinked a 56-yard field goal off the upright, giving the Steelers some life. They were down by 12, but had great field position and time still on their side.
On the first five plays of their drive Warren touched the football four times with runs of 11, 3 and 4 yards, and also an 18-yard screen pass that was one of their best passing plays of the night.
He had 18 yards on three carries and another 18 yards on a short pass. He accounted for 36 yards to get them down into a 2nd-and-6 at the Los Angeles 10-yard line.
Their next three plays:
2nd-and-6: Incomplete pass
3rd-and-6: Incomplete pass
4th-and-6: Incomplete pass
Warren never touched the ball again. They never attempted to run it again, instead trying to put the ball in the hands of a quarterback who had nothing all night. On the 3rd-and-6 play Rodgers airmailed another pass over a wide open Gainwell.
I don’t know. Maybe the running game also fails in those moments against Green Bay and Los Angeles. But it seems to me that it would have been worth trying to commit more to it, especially when you want that to be your identity and when that is the way your offense is built.
They do not have the personnel to pass as often as they do. They have one proven wide receiver. They do not pass protected particularly well. They have a 42-year-old quarterback who seems increasingly allergic to physical contact, and whose primary objective on every drop back seems to be avoiding getting hit. You can’t play the position that way. You can’t run an offense that way and with that personnel.
The running game is improving.
The passing game is regressing.
It is time to start running your offense in a way that reflects that.