After all the anticipation, excitement and hype surrounding a young offense in the Steel City entering the 2023 season, that unit came crashing back to Earth in rather violent fashion in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season-opener on Sunday at Acrisure Stadium against the San Francisco 49ers.
Pittsburgh’s offense couldn’t get into gear, struggled to do much of anything with the football outside of a two-minute drive late in the first half, and failed to deliver on all that anticipation, excitement and hype.
It was a massive dud, starting with second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett, one that was really discouraging overall, though it did come against arguably the best defense in football and a legitimate Super Bowl contender in the 49ers.
But, for ESPN NFL Insiders Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler, there is real concern there regarding the Steelers coming out of Week One, especially with an offense that “looked lost” in the 30-7 blowout loss.
“How about the Steelers, though, whose offense kicked off Year 3 of the Matt Canada Experience with a mega-dud? After all the excitement about how good Kenny Pickett and the offense looked in the preseason, the unit looked lost in the opener against the 49ers,” Graziano wrote in a piece for ESPN.com Wednesday morning. “How are the Steelers good enough to compete in a division with the Bengals, Ravens and Browns?”
No question about it: Sunday’s performance in all three phases was a dud, but most especially offensively. Things looked — and largely felt — different in training camp and the preseason with the Steelers’ offense. Pickett looked like a different, better quarterback in training camp and the preseason, too.
When the real games started on Sunday, he certainly looked like a different quarterback, and not in a good way either. He struggled to hit layup-like throws as his accuracy disappeared in a big spot. He forced things he shouldn’t have, and really just looked out of sync. That carried over to the rest of the offense, too.
Sunday’s performance against the 49ers was nothing but confirmation bias for Graziano. He has been down on the Steelers in the AFC North all offseason, and even stated in late August that predicting offensive success for the Steelers in 2023 based off of preseason play was “a mistake.” So far, he looks right, but it’s just one game. Questioning if the Steelers can compete with the rest of the AFC North based off one game against one of the NFC favorites feels like quite the stretch from Graziano.
Fowler is concerned, too, but he’s not ditching his belief in the Steelers.
“I expect Pickett to respond, but considering the Steelers’ offense hasn’t produced a 400-yard game since a January 2021 playoff loss to the Browns, time to perk up sooner than later,” Fowler wrote for ESPN.com.
Pickett is going to respond; there’s no doubt about that. He was bad on Sunday against the 49ers, no two ways about it. He knows it. The Steelers know it. Everybody knows it. But there’s a belief — and for good reason — he’ll bounce back. He needs some help though, especially from a rebuilt offensive line that needs to win the line of scrimmage to create some running room, and a pass-catching group that has to create some separation and win matchups.
There is certainly reason to be concerned with the Steelers coming out of the Week One loss, but again it’s one week, one game. It’s still very, very early in the season. A lot of football left to be played. Pittsburgh has to find a way to bounce back. That starts Monday night against the Cleveland Browns.
