The story of the day in Pittsburgh so far has been Mike Tomlin calling out the offensive line, and particularly second-year guard Kendrick Green, in a film session this morning. Defensive lineman Cam Heyward weighed in on the situation with his own experiences and said it’s all about getting better.
“Every guy has been in that position. I had Coach Mitch, and John Mitchell is not going to hold anything back,” Heyward said. “It taught me to learn, look for those mistakes more and learn from those mistakes. You just got to get better from it,” Heyward said via a tweet from Steelers Live.
Green, for as much as he’s struggled, is still young. He still has plenty of time to fix the flaws in his game and develop into a solid player, but the early returns really haven’t been promising. The offensive line as a whole has just been bad, so maybe seeing that and getting called out in front of the team will motivate them to really dive deep into why and how they’re struggling and work to fix it.
It’ll be interesting to see how much the offensive line progresses throughout the year. Obviously, they can’t keep up this current level of play. If they do, the Steelers are really going to struggle. It’s reasonable to expect some measure of improvement as the line gets more used to Pat Meyer’s system and they see more game action, but they need to get a lot better from where they’re at now. This team has the talent to stay in the mix in the AFC throughout the regular season, but that won’t be the case if the line keeps up their current struggles.
Hopefully, Tomlin making an example of the offensive line makes them evaluate how they’ve played and realize they need to get significantly better. At this point, I just want to see some signs they’re improving, and I want to see them on Sunday against the Detroit Lions. It’s clear to anyone who watched Saturday’s game that things have to change, as Pittsburgh couldn’t run the ball and the quarterbacks were constantly under pressure.
In conclusion, something has to change with this offensive line. They have to play better and find a way to be able to do so. Hopefully, this morning’s film session spurred something that will induce a change. If the line comes out Week One and plays the way they did on Saturday, Mitch Trubisky (or whoever the Week One starter is) will be running for his life on nearly every passing down. Change and improvement have to happen, and it has to happen now.
