In today’s NFL, it appears that the way to win games consistently and ultimately lift a Lombardi Trophy relies heavily on a high-powered offensive attack.
The two teams that met in the Super Bowl last season — the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles — featured two of the league’s best offenses throughout the 2022 season. It was no surprise that the Super Bowl was a high-scoring affair.
What is a surprise is the way the Pittsburgh Steelers are trying to go about winning games consistently, reaching the playoffs and ultimately trying to add a seventh Lombardi to the trophy case, that being by building defensively and aiming to run the football, possess the football and limit mistakes — all things high-powered offenses through caution into the wind with.
GM Omar Khan, who spoke to reporters Thursday following the first walkthrough session of training camp in Latrobe, stated that he’s confident the Steelers can win in any way moving forward, whether that’s in a low-scoring game or a high-scoring affair.
“We had a vision after last season, Coach [Tomlin], Art [Rooney II] and myself. We got together and…we had a vision of what we wanted the roster to look like this year and how we were gonna win football games,” Khan said, according to video via the Steelers official YouTube page. “I can say that every single week in this league brings a different challenge, and you have to win football games in a different way every week. Sometimes we’re gonna win, hopefully win scoring.
“You might win scoring 12 points, sometimes you might need to score 40 points. I’m confident we can win either way.”
Well, that at least makes one of us confident that the Steelers can win when they need to score 40 points.
The Steelers haven’t scored 40 points in a game since 2018, that coming in a 52-21 win over the Carolina Panthers at then-Heinz Field on Thursday Night Football in Week 10 of the 2018 season. Heck, they have scored just 30 points or more just three times in the last two seasons. Scoring points is a real challenge for Pittsburgh, and in the scheme under Matt Canada 2023 won’t get much easier, especially if they are going to lean heavily on a ball-control, run-heavy offensive attack like they did down the stretch during the 2022 season, going 7-2 with that style.
While Pittsburgh added weapons this offseason in receiver Allen Robinson II and tight end Darnell Washington via the draft, not to mention key offensive line pieces in guard Isaac Seumalo, rookie tackle Broderick Jones and veteran backup interior offensive lineman Nate Herbig, the roster very clearly looks like it’s going to lean heavily on the defense to shorten games and win low-scoring affairs.
Second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett hasn’t quite been asked to be in a shootout, nor has Canada as the offensive coordinator, outside of the Week 11 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals at Acrisure Stadium 37-30. Pittsburgh is certainly built to win low-scoring games; that’s how Tomlin largely wants to play. But high-scoring, shootout-style matchups remain to be seen.
Khan has confidence that they can win those games. Does Canada and the players?
