With a young offense last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive unit went through some growing pains. They had a lot of mental errors in the form of pre-snap penalties or the dreaded ineligible man downfield penalty that haunted Pittsburgh for a bit, but WR Diontae Johnson said the team is more prepared and in a better spot heading into the 2023 season.
“Everybody’s playing faster, you can see it on the film,” Johnson said before practice today via Steelers.com. “Everybody knows what they’re doing, last year the timing was off a little bit, you’d kind of question who’s gonna be in the right spot. But this year’s different, gonna be in the right spot, if they change the play everyone knows their assignment,” he continued. “We way better prepared than last year.”
Johnson is still the leader in the wide receiver room, but the group added another veteran mentor in WR Allen Robinson II, and Isaac Seumalo was added to the offensive line. That’s a lot of leadership added to an offense that needed it. They were one of the youngest in the league last season and there were definitely some struggles and headaches that you wouldn’t see with an older team.
But with QB Kenny Pickett entering his second year and the group getting older, it seems as if those headaches are starting to subside. It’s still early on in training camp, but if Johnson is seeing a noticeable difference in the team’s preparation, that’s a good sign. The more mistake-free Pittsburgh can be, the more painless the season will be and everything will be smoother.
It’ll make the offense better and more efficient, which will help their goal of controlling the clock and wearing teams out. Nothing can kill a drive faster than an untimely penalty, setting the group back and costing them valuable yards. If those mistakes are limited this season, almost by default the offense will be better.
When you combine less mistakes with general progression across the board, the Steelers offense actually has a chance to be good in 2023. It’s been too long since Pittsburgh has an offense that teams have to be worried about, but if they’re able to build off the progress in the run game from the second half last year and play more mistake-free, it could be a solid group.
It’s going to be exciting to watch the offense work in Pickett’s second season, and hopefully Matt Canada opens the playbook up and the group can be more explosive on top of limiting their mistakes. That’s what has to happen for Pittsburgh to be a playoff team, and it’s something I’m going to be looking for when the games start to matter.
