Last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers offense was anything but spectacular. They average just over 18 ppg which ranked near the bottom of the league and scored a total of 28 TDs during the regular season (16 rushing, 12 passing) with the 12 passing TDs being the lowest mark in the NFL. Still, they managed to control the clock well at the end of games during the second half of the season, running the ball effectively and doing just enough to win several low-scoring affairs late.
There’s no denying that the offense needs to take a notable step forward in 2023 compared to where it was last season as Pittsburgh would go stretches of games failing to get anything going offensively until the team needed it most. Part of this was seen in their offense once they crossed midfield and got into the red zone, settling for field goals rather than being able to punch the ball into the end zone for TDs.
Warren Sharp, who works for The Ringer as well as runs SharpFootballAnalysis.com, recently tweeted out the TD rates on drives that crossed midfield for every NFL team. You have to scroll down a ways before you find the Steelers sitting at 27%, the fourth-worst mark in the league.
The only teams worse than Pittsburgh last season in this metric were the Indianapolis Colts, the New York Jets, and the Denver Broncos. The Houston Texans sit just above the Steelers at 28% and the Kansas City Chiefs expectedly took the top spot, scoring TDs on 50% of drives that crossed midfield in 2022.
We knew that Pittsburgh’s scoring offense needs to improve drastically from last season as we head into 2023, but this stat just speaks to the inefficient play Pittsburgh dealt with in 2022 when it comes to punching the ball into the end zone for TDs. The Steelers scored TDs on nearly just 1/4 of their opportunities once they crossed midfield, a poor metric for a team that wants to methodically move the ball down the field and eat as much clock as possible to cap off long scoring drives. They led the league last season in average plays per offensive drive with 6.51, but still struggled to get the job done despite being within scoring range.
One would hope that the scoring offense will be drastically better this season with Kenny Pickett entering Year Two with a full season under his belt. Along with Pickett’s progression, the Steelers have added quality pieces to their offensive line as well as bolstered the receiving core, giving Pickett more weapons to attack opposing defenses and get the ball moving once they cross the 50-yard line. If Pittsburgh wants to be legit playoff contenders this season, that metric needs to be closer to 40% where most of the playoff teams from a year ago sat at or above, giving the Steelers a benchmark to shoot for in 2023.
