Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said earlier this offseason that he’s not expecting his young quarterback to be able to compete in and win a lot of shootouts for them this year. I can’t help but wonder how that quarterback, Kenny Pickett, really feels about that sentiment.
While he said afterward he knows he can’t try to be a superhero, it does conflict at least somewhat with earlier comments that he made, saying that he believes they have the talent to go “shot for shot” with the best teams in the league—of which quarterback play would be the central component.
Perhaps Tomlin is just trying to lower the outside expectations to a reasonable level for an offense that is still young and putting itself together. Internally, though, that doesn’t seem to be how they actually feel about themselves. They know it’s on them.
“From OTAs and now training camp, I think we could feel the vibe change of, this is our year to get the offense going”, TE Pat Freiermuth said on the WDVE Morning Show with Randy Baumann. “Everyone’s stepped up to the plate and I think everyone’s having a great camp so far”.
Most of the young core of the group remains intact, including himself and Pickett alongside RB Najee Harris, H-back Connor Heyward, and WRs Diontae Johnson, George Pickens, and Calvin Austin III. They’ve supplemented ably with veterans, particularly along the offensive line, adding Isaac Seumalo in free agency this year.
It’s fair to question how prepared they were to function at a high level a year ago, given how inexperienced so many of their key components were, not just generally but as a group. That included the ongoing getting-to-know-you process with offensive coordinator Matt Canada, from whose shoulders Freiermuth relieved some of the burden, believing the key this year for them is “sharper execution”.
“I think last year we had the shots down the field and I think we had stuff to get the offense more explosive”, he said. “I think we just weren’t executing it. There’s a lot of factors into that, but I think the majority of it was the players not executing what they were assigned and not making enough plays”.
It’s true, Canada can’t be blamed for everything, even if the song is catchy. But both the play-calling and design and the execution have to step up in significant ways this offseason if this offense is going up to live up to its own expectations for itself.
The Steelers moved the ball between the 20s about as well as any team in the league in the second half of the 2022 season. They had some of the longest drives, but that’s also because they had among the fewest explosive plays. And they were not finishing in the red zone the way they need to.
It’s both design and execution. They need to go hand-in-hand and be responsive to one another, adjusting where necessary. That’s their mission in 2023. Are you feeling the vibe?
