One of the magic words in the conversation about offensive football is balance. But what really is balance? In the most general sense, it tends to refer to a beneficial ratio of run plays to pass plays, but even the idea of what that ratio should be has evolved over the years.
What we do know is that if you had to throw the ball 46 times in a game in which you only ran the ball 10 times, you most likely did not do terribly well. There is a general correlation between disproportionately pass-heavy play selections and playing from a points deficit. Those were the Pittsburgh Steelers’ run-pass numbers from the season opener, in case you didn’t notice, and they lost, 30-7.
And then against the Las Vegas Raiders, they ran the ball 29 times by design and dropped back to pass 31 times, and it was by far their cleanest victory, even with its imperfections. Those numbers include a sack and two scrambles as drop backs, by the way. So what is offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s perception of balance? Well, you try to figure it out. He is as well.
“What’s the balance, the correct balance? Is it doing more or having opportunities or mistakes and not quite knowing what to do?, Or, simplify and that’s why it was better”, he told reporters Thursday via transcript about whether a better balance in the Raiders game explains why they were successful.
“There is a balance there of doing more, different things, different looks to execute”, he added, “which we’ve got a lot in our bank here of plays we’ve run at camp, and also getting our guys comfortable. So yeah, we can do a lot more things. Again, got to find a way to win this week any way we can. We’ll just keep trying to add to it from there”.
And there’s the interesting bit. The Steelers have a lot more in the holster than they’ve shown so far, Canada says. And that’s far from inconsistent with what we’ve heard all along. It’s not surprising, after all. The game circumstances of the first two weeks severely limited what they could get to.
LT Dan Moore Jr. said this week that they were able to touch more of the playbook this week in part because they made the decision to place less emphasis in their protection scheme on Maxx Crosby than they did on Myles Garrett and Nick Bosa. Not because they respected him any less but because what they were doing wasn’t working.
QB Kenny Pickett has also talked about getting to more things in the playbook this week than they had been. Again, not surprising when you spend so much time trailing or at least constantly chasing in a one-possession game.
Yet what we see out there still looks pretty vanilla more often than not. We find ourselves praising the Steelers’ ability to execute a basic mesh route over the middle to set up a YAC opportunity when really it should be an easily repeatable staple of any decent offense.
Balance? I just want some extended drives for a start.
