I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about the many ways in which the Pittsburgh Steelers offense has sucked this season, even if a limerick might feel more appropriate. It’s about as bad as anybody who’s alive has ever seen, quite frankly.
The inability to push the ball down the field, catch it when it gets there, or break out for a decent gain in the run game is one of the unit’s many faults, and no statistic better encapsulates that than the fact that they are the only team in the NFL without an explosive-play touchdown in 2022. In fact, their longest score is all of eight yards, that the touchdown from Mitch Trubisky to Pat Freiermuth back in week two.
Whether on the cusp of the red zone or backed up in their own end, however, this unit has chronically struggled to move the chains in anything more than stops and starts. It’s been a death blow because they have such a small margin for error and are rarely able to sustain long drives without shooting themselves in the foot. It’s no surprise everybody’s a bit testy about it.
Reporters this past week picked up on this fact about their lack of long-range scoring and brought it to the attention of offensive coordinator Matt Canada yesterday. The transcript shows that he cut off the question, responding, “Yeah, we want them. That’s what we want. Good call. That’s a great idea”.
For some reason, the follow-up question was whether or not increasing scoring was really that simple, to which he sarcastically replied, “Yeah, it is. It sounds like it”. A clear sign that everything is going well if I’ve ever seen one.
But there is a point here. We’re having the same conversations every week or variations of them and there’s a point at which you have to question the utility of having them. All of the answers to the same questions have already been given. There’s nothing to add when nothing is changing.
It’s not as though you can simply ask, ‘Is this how it’s going to be all season?’, and even if you did, the obvious response would be that of course that’s not what we expect and we’re gonna keep working on it until we get if fixed.
This is just the nature of the beast when you have a unit that is plain and simply not good enough. Until the play-calling improves and better reflects the on-field talent, until the line improves, until the play under center improves, this is going to be what we get, no matter how we frame the questions next week.
“It is what it is”, Canada said. “There’s a lot of things we want to do better”, he added. “I say that a lot, the players have said it, we’ve sat in there and looked at it”. We’re all doing the same song and dance and everybody knows it.
And finally, he hit on it: “Nobody cares”. Nine weeks in, words are meaningless until actions reveal change.
