Over the past two weeks, the Pittsburgh Steelers have put up 81 points, with 74 coming thanks to the offense. A pair of turnovers did give the Steelers first and goal against the Houston Texans the week prior to last, but the offense still managed to put both of those opportunities into the end zone.
Pittsburgh has now played four games at home, during which they have scored 30, 24, 30, and 51 points. They have won in each game in which they scored 30 points or more, and are averaging just under34 points per game at Heinz Field, or 32 points on offense.
In those four games, the Steelers have converted 28 of 56 third and fourth down attempts, or exactly half of their attempts, including three for three on fourth down.
They have averaged 465 yards per game, going 10 for 15 in the red zone, and seven for nine in goal to go situations, converting 67 percent and 78 percent of the time with a touchdown, respectively.
That’s great and all. Now the issue is figuring out how to take that show on the road.
The Steelers have played four road games thus far this season, and have scored 6, 37, 17, and 10 points in those games, averaging 17.5 points per game.
If you factor out a touchdown on a pick six and another on a fumble recovery on special teams, the Steelers are averaging just 14 points on the road on offense.
In those four games, they have averaged 371 yards on offense, and converted 24 of 56 third and fourth down attempts, or about 43 percent of the time. That is still a good ratio, but the offense’ performance inside the red zone has left much to be desired.
The Steelers have only managed to score four touchdowns on the road on offense inside the red zone on 13 trips, for a conversion ratio of less than 31 percent. They have only had eight goal to go situations on the road, and converted only half of them. They’ve only score five offensive touchdowns in total on the road.
Ben Roethlisberger threw for six touchdowns in just the last game.
Continuing to perform as they have on offense while away from Heinz Field will be a recipe for disaster. You simply won’t win many games in this league scoring less than 20 points, and it took a team as bad as the Jacksonville Jaguars to enable the Steelers to do so.
Pittsburgh has a big game coming up this Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, and it’s fortunately at Heinz Field. The Steelers already lost in Baltimore by a score of 26-6.
But four of their next five games after that are on the road before finishing up with two games at home. If they can’t start taking that home cooking with them in a travel mug, they may be out of contention by the first day of winter.
