While the Pittsburgh Steelers walked out of Acrisure Stadium Monday night with a win against the Cleveland Browns, many are still wondering what is wrong with the offense. The running game was again non-existent and QB Kenny Pickett and the passing game struggled to get in a rhythm, causing the cast of ESPN’s Get Up to take a jab at Pittsburgh’s “offensive philosophy.”
“It’s okay to go three and out every now and then,” Graziano said on Get Up, via video from ESPN’s YouTube channel. “It’s not okay if three and out is your identity.”
A rather blunt statement from Graziano holds a lot of weight after Pittsburgh’s first two regular-season games. Pittsburgh had eight three and outs Week One against the San Francisco 49ers, including a mind-blowing seven straight to open the game. Last night against the Browns, Pittsburgh went three and out three times, including twice in the second half on back-to-back drives.
Mike Tomlin has made it known that the Steelers need to do a better job offensively by staying on schedule and maintaining possession of the ball. Going three and out kills any opportunity of accomplishing that as well as limits your ability to score more than one touchdown in a game.
“For the Steelers offensively, I think this is the fifth time in Kenny Pickett’s last seven starts they’ve only scored one touchdown,” Robert Griffin III said on Get Up. “That’s a problem.”
That is a big problem, and the math checks out. Pittsburgh’s offense scored just one touchdown in each of the two first two regular-season games. And the Steelers only scored one offensive touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 17 last season, one against the Las Vegas Raiders the week before, and one against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 13, Pickett’s last full game after getting knocked out of the Ravens game the following week, causing him to miss the Carolina Panthers game.
While Pickett’s play may have improved down the stretch in terms of limiting his turnovers as well as coming up big in crucial moments of games, the offense largely still struggled to pick up first downs consistently and establish scoring drives where the ball got into the end zone. The same is the case to start the 2023 season with Pickett dealing with the turnover bug again, throwing three picks in two starts while having his accuracy waver on passes that should be relatively easy completions.
Be it Pickett, OC Matt Canada, the offensive line, the running backs, etc, this offense must start playing better if the Steelers want to have a chance of not only making the postseason but doing anything relevant if they do indeed get into the dance. The defense came up big last night, making splash plays where Pittsburgh’s offense struggled to do so. The Steelers hit that big touchdown pass to WR George Pickens on the 71-yard catch-and-run, but they need to be able to establish drives with their running game and have Pickett complete possession-down passes to move the sticks and keep thing on schedule.
They will get their chance against a Las Vegas Raiders defense that just got torched by Buffalo on Sunday and has surrendered 277 rushing yards in its first two games of the season.
