Let’s get this out of the way. Sunday’s loss is not solely on OC Matt Canada. It was a team-wide failure. Players, coaches, everything. If anything, this was a failure on the players more than the overall game plan. But there is one play call, off the top, that bugs the heck out of me. It probably wasn’t changing the outcome of the game but the process was still U-G-L-Y.
It’s fourth and 4. Steelers are down 27-7, late third quarter. Trying to put a touchdown on the board, make it 27-14, make things at least look interesting. Pittsburgh comes out in its standard 11 personnel, 3×1. No problems there.
The route concepts though? Oh boy. That’s a different story. We don’t yet have the All-22 but you don’t need that to know what’s going on. It’s four verticals. At the San Francisco 49ers’ 8-yard line. There’s no horizontal crosser, no route putting anyone in conflict, nothing but back-of-the-end zone shots against a defense that has to only cover limited ground.
All the 49ers do here is sink and gain depth. Everything is taken away. There’s no other threat to suck any defender up to give Pickett another option at the sticks or at the least, open up something behind into the end zone. All Pickett can do is fire down the seam to TE Pat Freiermuth. There’s miscommunication here, Pickett saying after the game he and Freiermuth were on two different wavelengths, and the pass falls incomplete.
But even if they were on the same page, this is a tight throw that probably isn’t going to be complete. And likely gets Freiermuth nailed, as what happened earlier in the game (though on a different concept).
On a money down like this, there needs to be a better call. Something that creates space and doesn’t rely on everyone winning downfield. It’s not like there was even space to run. With the back of the end zone staring them all in the face, the defense isn’t expanded vertically like they would be if the ball was at, say, the Steelers’ own 40-yard line.
This is a call seemingly doomed to work with such a low percentage of success. I’m not saying the Steelers win here if they score. I’m not saying Canada is the top name to blame (Kenny Pickett was miserable yesterday, it starts with him), but this one got under my skin. Just mailing it in with a bad call as the Steelers’ last hopes went up in smoke. It’s one of about a thousand issues in this game but the first that sticks out to me.
