For the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kenny Pickett, it’s been a struggle to put together successful offense drives. Despite sitting at 3-2, it’s often been the defense either putting points on the board themselves or putting the offense in great field position to score.
Take the Baltimore Ravens game for example. In the first three quarters, the team had just one drive of over 30 yards, which resulted in a punt, and only put three points on the board. However, Pickett and the offense came alive in the 4th quarter, stringing together their two best drives of the game. First, was a 49-yard drive that resulted in a field goal, and then was the eventual game-winning touchdown drive that went for 80 yards and capped off by the 41-yard George Pickens touchdown.
This poses the question, why can’t the offense do this more consistently? It seems like this team is often playing behind the eight-ball and is relying on late-game heroics to pull off wins. NFL analyst Kyle Brandt talked about this on Good Morning Football this week.
“The offense sucks and sucks and it’s tedious, and then all of a sudden – ‘Damn Kenny where has that been!’. But what if that was on the first drive of the game and the last drive of the game?” Brandt propositioned to the GMFB crew. “I’m not saying you gotta be four-quarters of All-Pro. But can we get two really good drives, we are surviving on bread and water with just one. I don’t need you to throw for 500 yards. Just two great touchdown drives and we can cook with this defense. Two drives Kenny, and we’ll see you in the playoffs.”
Asking for just two drives doesn’t seem like a tall order for an NFL team with playoff aspirations, but it has been for the 2023 Steelers. They only have five touchdown drives through their first five games, which ranks dead last in the league, tied with the New York Giants. The only game they have had multiple touchdowns was in Week Three against the Raiders. One of those drives only consisted of three plays, and 72 of the 75 yards on that possession stemmed from a touchdown pass to WR Calvin Austin III.
The inability to put together long drives is another warning sign for this Steelers’ offense. They rank 30th in the league in average plays per touchdown drives at just 6.6, ahead of only the New York Jets and Tennessee Titans. This shows how reliant this offense has been on splash plays. On one hand, it’s encouraging to see the offense’s ability to produce these splash plays, but when you can’t do it with much consistency, it becomes a problem. Right above the Steelers in 29th with 6.7 plays per touchdown drive is the Miami Dolphins, which is pretty good company. However, the Dolphins have a whopping 30 touchdown drives compared to the Steelers five. If you are going to rely on splash plays like Miami does, you need to have exceptional playmakers who can produce them often.
For Pickett, it goes back to what Brandt said. No one is expecting this offense to be great or even good. But if he can put together two solid drives per game, instead of the standard one, the defense should be enough to carry this squad to the playoffs.
