The 2023 season was supposed to be a promising one for the Pittsburgh Steelers, especially offensively. Second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett was expected to take a massive leap forward, the run game was going to bully people and the offense would look much, much different than what Matt Canada showed in his first two seasons as offensive coordinator.
Through the first four games of a season that had so much anticipation and excitement building up to it, the Steelers offense has regressed — hard. Pickett looks completely lost at times, has no pocket awareness and is turning over the football at an alarming clip.
The run game, for the most part, is stuck in the mud as the offensive line isn’t creating much displacement at all and the running backs aren’t generating much after contact. Then there’s the route concepts and the unimaginative, predictable scheme from Canada.
All that has the Steelers at 2-2 and has ESPN’s Bill Barnwell very concerned and unsure if the Steelers’ infrastructure offensively is sound enough to succeed, regardless of who is at quarterback moving forward following Pickett’s knee injury against the Houston Texans Sunday.
“Despite hitting on long touchdown passes to George Pickens and Calvin Austin, Kenny Pickett was averaging just 6.6 yards per attempt before his injury. The key number to keep in mind here is success rate, which measures how often a quarterback keeps his offense on schedule to score points. By the NFL Next Gen Stats model, Pickett has generated a 33.1% success rate on his drop backs this season. Only Zach Wilson has been worse,” Barnwell writes regarding Pickett and the Steelers’ offense.
Though Wilson had a breakout game on Sunday Night Football against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, being in the same company as the struggling former No. 2 overall pick is not a good place to be for Pickett when it comes to success rate.
Not that’s all on Pickett. Canada is not helping him with creative route concepts, scheming up easy completions and really stressing defenses. Yes, the Steelers are missing some key pieces and are struggling to protect Pickett, and largely lack any sort of strength offensively, but the coaching staff isn’t really doing anything to help said struggling offense.
That’s where Barnwell’s question regarding the infrastructure comes into play.
“The good news for the Steelers is that the bye is coming in Week 6, and that should be about the time they’ll expect wideout Diontae Johnson to return from his hamstring injury. The bad news is that defensive end Cameron Heyward (groin) is not expected to return until midseason, and they get the archrival Ravens this week. Baltimore isn’t exactly healthy, but it has Lamar Jackson. It’s unclear whether Pittsburgh will have its starting quarterback going forward, or whether it has the infrastructure to succeed with any quarterback at the helm,” Barnwell writes for ESPN.com.
It’s a fair question to ask.
Even after Pickett showed promised late in his rookie season, leading the Steelers to a 7-2 record down the stretch to finish 9-8 on the season, leading four fourth-quarter comebacks and three game-winning drives, Pittsburgh should have moved on from Canada as the offense was largely lifeless until late when it needed a few plays and talent came through in a big way.
Instead, Pittsburgh went the stable route, bringing Canada back for the final year of his contract. If the first four games are any indication, that was the wrong choice. Very, very wrong.
Nothing is getting better offensively. In fact, it’s getting worse across the board. Even with Pickett — who, to be fair, has really struggled early in the year — likely out for a few weeks due to the knee injury, things aren’t going to get corrected with Mitch Trubisky under center or even Mason Rudolph, depending on what Pittsburgh does moving forward.
The infrastructure offensively is cratering. It starts at the top. The Steelers went the duct tape route to try and hold it together another year, rather than tearing it down and rebuilding it. Now, the whole house offensively might be condemned.
