For the Pittsburgh Steelers to make the playoffs this season, their offense has to improve. In particular, the team needs to score more points and score touchdowns when the offense gets into the red zone. Last season, the Steelers scored a touchdown on only 51.92% of the times they were inside the 20, which was 21st in the NFL.
Offensive coordinator Matt Canada, while meeting with the media today during mandatory minicamp, acknowledged that the Steelers have to be better in the red zone.
“We gotta score more points, gotta be better in the red zone,” Canada said in a video posted to Steelers.com.
Canada said that the team has been emphasizing red zone work during offseason practices.
“I think we’ve spent a lot of time on the red zone. Again, we’re aware of what are those issues,” he said. “We had some missed assignments. This, that, it doesn’t matter why we aren’t successful. Again, that’s what we all want to talk about, but the bottom line is we have to be more productive down there. So, as a staff we spent a lot of time on what that was. We spent a lot of time in meetings and installation and that’s been a primary focus.”
The Steelers’ struggles in the red zone last season weren’t unexpected. Space gets smaller in the red zone and with a rookie quarterback in Kenny Pickett progressions need to be faster which is hard for first-year players. Over the past two seasons, the team has finished a paltry 23rd in the red zone. Last year is last year though; it must improve this year.
Pittsburgh’s offense isn’t projected to be explosive this season, and quite frankly it isn’t built to be explosive. This year the Steelers are going to try and beat teams up and control time of possession. But when you do that you have to score points as often as possible and come away with six almost every time you get in the red zone.
In his second season the game should slow down a bit for Pickett, which will help the Steelers in the red zone. While the team has a strong rushing attack, you need your quarterback to make big the plays inside the 20 and Pickett showed he was capable of doing that towards the end of last season. He just needs to be more consistent in that this year.
Obviously, Canada has to take some blame too. The playcalling last season was not good and it didn’t magically improve in the red zone. While it likely won’t be super different this year, hopefully Canada has expanded the playbook now that the starting quarterback will have a second year in the system.
With Pickett entering his second season and a more defined offensive identity the Steelers should improve in the red zone. Just how much is unknown, but it could play a huge part in how far the Steelers go this season in their quest to win a Super Bowl.
