With the Pittsburgh Steelers playing Thursday night on the road against the Cleveland Browns, a lot of fans are probably wondering if we’ll be treated to a few changes and schematics when it comes to the team’s offense, which has been very lackluster and ultimately not highly successful overall in the first two games of the 2022 regular season. Based on what Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said on his weekly television show, don’t count ion the team’s offense and play-calling to look a lot different Thursday night against the Browns.
Tomlin was asked by host Bob Pompeani during his Week 3 show if the team can expand some of the playbook Thursday night or if the short week will result in more of a need to execute current plays better than they have been so far through two games played.
“We can expand the playbook, but probably less likely so on a short week,” Tomlin said. “I think the playbook gets expanded by understanding. I think with each passing week, the better that we understand concepts, the more you can get out of them, the more mileage they have on them, the more you can apply them to different circumstances in different ways.
“And so, plays, themselves, are just a component of it, but the understanding of the play really makes it versatile, and I think that we are a group in growth and development in those areas.”
In short, it sounds like we are in store for more of what we have seen through the first two weeks of the 2022 regular season when it comes to the Steelers offense with perhaps a different wrinkle added here and there. Maybe different formations and personnel groupings, or at least that’s my hope.
Let’s face it, the Steelers being on a short week means that they have had just two practices this week and odds are that those weren’t overly intense. This short week was probably more about teaching and correcting things that have gone wrong in the first two games and less about expanding plays to be ran or overall schematics.
If things play out like I think they will Thursday night and based on what Tomlin said on his television show, Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada better put quite a bit of lipstick on the pig that he calls his playbook for the game against the Browns. It will be interesting to see just how many of the offensive plays that are ran Thursday night are easily recognizable when compared to the full breakdown that Alex Kozora did of the Week 2 game.
Regardless of how things look offensive for the Steelers Thursday night against the Browns, you can bet that we’ll be doing full breakdowns of the tape to see just how much the playbook was expanded from the first two games.
