Who else cringes a little bit when watching the Pittsburgh Steelers consistently check the ball down while running OC Matt Canada’s offense the last couple of seasons?
If you raised your hand, don’t worry. I as well as plenty of other Steelers fans are in the same camp as you, my friend. We have written about Canada’s boring, bland offense numerous times here on the site, having seen minor progress down the stretch of last season, but largely the same result of constant speed outs, curls, short drags, and comebacks to the football in a dink-and-dunk style offense.
It can be frustrating to watch sometimes… well, most of the time. But for the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was the team’s recipe for success the last couple of seasons. Ben Roethlisberger became the captain of the dink-and-dunk offense, lacking the mobility to extend plays the way he used to in his prime, thus relying on methodically working his way down the field on short passes to get points on the board. The same could be said for last season when rookie QB Kenny Pickett took over as Canada and the Steelers kept the training wheels on Pickett for a majority of the season, having him play the game safe and avoid turning the football over by stretching the field vertically.
Lauren Gray of Pro Football Focus recently published a study on the NFL QBs who relied the most on checkdown passes last season, listing each QB’s total passing attempts, checkdown attempts, and checkdown percentage. Kenny Pickett cracked the list at #8, totaling 389 passing attempts with 36 checkdown attempts for a checkdown percentage of 9.2%
As mentioned before, checking the ball down to your RB in the flat or your TE releasing from his blocking assignment isn’t always a bad thing. It often results in a small positive gain of yardage (depending on YAC) rather than a negative play by taking a sack when under pressure. When looking at the rankings, some of the best NFL QBs had a higher checkdown percentage than Pickett with Josh Allen right above him with 9.5% Joe Burrow at 11.5%, and Justin Herbert at 11.7%.
Still, the check down statistics show up in Pickett’s adjusted net yards per passing attempt (5.5) as well as his average yards per attempt (6.2) last season. Pickett needs to be able to stretch the field more in 2023 if he wants to take a notable step forward in his performance and lead Pittsburgh into playoff contention.
While Canada is partially to blame for this and the offense needs it’s tweaks, Pickett also must take some ownership on his performance last season and look to give the passing game more of a spark in his second season, making opposing defenses respect him as a passer and play the offense honest as a team that wants to run you over, but has a plethora of weapons in the passing game to beat you as well.
