Mason Rudolph said the magic words the other day when asked about Mike McCarthy\u2019s impact on the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 offensive scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201c(He\u2019s) opening it up quite a bit,\u201d Rudolph said.<\/p>\n
Man, it\u2019s about time. We\u2019ve been talking about why the Steelers are unable (unwilling?) to \u201copen it up\u201d since the final years of Big Ben, who morphed into Little Ben by the end, at least in terms of the length of his passes.<\/p>\n
Most popular question: Why can\u2019t the Steelers threaten defenses with a legit downfield pass game?<\/p>\n
Is it the scheme?<\/p>\n
The line?<\/p>\n
The lack of a consistent run game to keep defenses honest?<\/p>\n
The quarterback?<\/p>\n
The receivers?<\/p>\n
The best answer is probably \u201call the above\u201d at various times over the past seven years.<\/p>\n
We went from Randy Fichtner\u2019s ill-fated \u201cthrow short, run long\u201d pass attack to Matt Canada\u2019s \u201cthrow short, run short, rarely score\u201d scheme and then back to The Fichtner Method under Arthur Smith.<\/p>\n
Nobody threw shorter than the Steelers last season.<\/p>\n
Aaron Rodgers threw the shortest passes in the NFL, on average. Tons were thrown backwards, in fact. Nobody threw more behind the line of scrimmage than the Steelers.<\/p>\n
I half-expected we\u2019d see a play where Rodgers turned around and heaved it 50 yards the wrong way to DK Metcalf. If Diontae Johnson was still on the team, the Steelers might have had the greatest backwards offense in NFL history.<\/p>\n
Rodgers\u2019 receivers made the most \u201cyards after catch\u201d in the league, but that\u2019s the good news and the bad news. The Fichtner Method only goes so far. At some point, defenses no longer respect your ability to beat them over the top and start allocating more resources toward the line of scrimmage.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not good for an offense that wants to run the ball and peck you to death with tiny passes.<\/p>\n
Remember when Mike Tomlin (or was it Art Rooney II?) fired Canada midway through the 2023 season? Tomlin said he wanted to \u201cengineer victory more fluidly\u201d and that the best way to do it was to score more.<\/p>\n
Well, the Steelers still haven\u2019t finished in the top 10 in scoring since 2018, back when a still-prime Roethlisberger was throwing to Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who combined for nearly 3,000 yards receiving and 22 touchdowns. (It sure helps to have good players.)<\/p>\n
The postseason has been even worse. The Steelers managed just two field goals in their most recent playoff debacle, a 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans.<\/p>\n
That put a nice bow on Tomlin\u2019s sordid playoff history over the past decade: His last playoff win, as it turned out, also came touchdown-free \u2014 an 18-16 win over the Alex Smith-led Kansas City Chiefs in the 2016 postseason, which was so long ago that Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers faced Eli Manning in a playoff game.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be honest about the Tomlin offenses over the time frame in question: They were mostly an embarrassment. The numbers are staggering. Here are two that tell the tale:<\/p>\n
1 \u2014 The Steelers have gone a franchise-record \u2014 and nearly NFL-record \u2014 67 straight regular-season games without eclipsing seven points in the first quarter. That\u2019s the second-longest streak in modern-day NFL history. (The Giants snapped an 80-game streak last season.)<\/p>\n
2 \u2014 The Steelers have been outscored 73-3 in the first quarters of their seven-game, nine-year playoff losing streak.<\/p>\n
Those numbers speak to a serious lack of preparation. They speak to bad coaching, quite frankly, and McCarthy is nothing if not a good offensive coach.<\/p>\n
So scheme shouldn\u2019t be a problem.<\/p>\n
As for the other recurring issues \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2022 The line. Will players finally settle into roles? You might have three players at new positions. You also might have two rookie starters. I\u2019m not sure that portends tight security for a soon-to-be 43-year-old quarterback.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The run game, which finished a disappointing 26th in the NFL last season. The Steelers should have a two-headed monster in Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle and plenty of beef up front. But back to the main issue here: They need to make defenses respect their downfield pass game in order to open the run.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The receivers. GM Omar Khan finally completed his Mt. Everest-like journey to find a No. 2 receiver. Michael Pittman is a nice addition to complement Metcalf. Germie Bernard could be. Maybe McCarthy can unlock Pat Freiermuth. There still isn\u2019t much depth on the outside, but the situation has improved.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The quarterback. Well, there\u2019s no doubt Rodgers can still sling it. But will he have enough time to let longer plays develop \u2014 and is he still willing to stand in there and get crushed if that\u2019s what it takes?<\/p>\n
Sometimes old boxers just don\u2019t want to get punched anymore. We shall see. This much is undeniable: The Steelers are least trying to fix a persistent problem.<\/p>\n
They are trying to engineer victory more fluidly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mason Rudolph said the magic words the other day when asked about Mike McCarthy\u2019s impact on the Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-662230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}