“Hell yeah, we gotta make some changes.”
This was the statement that Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin made back on October 1 after his team got humiliated in Houston, getting blown out by the Texans 30-6. Following that loss, Tomlin mentioned getting his team back in pads to improve physicality and focus on the practice field leading up to the team’s divisional matchup with the Baltimore Ravens the following week. Outside of the padded practice (of which there was just one that week) and a little bit of shuffling on the practice squad, that’s all the real changes that have been documented so far for the Steelers.
Coming back from the bye week, Tomlin, as well as OC Matt Canada have pointed to the execution of the players as well as the mentality the team plays with as key areas that need to be addressed. Meanwhile, QB Kenny Pickett and QB Coach Mike Sullivan pointed to changes in the scheme that could be made along with better execution from the players as things that the team needed to address to improve the state of the offense.
When C Mason Cole was asked about what was done over the bye week to improve the offensive scheme and execution, he followed the same mantra as Tomlin, pointing to finer details rather than making a drastic change to the starting lineup or the coaching staff.
“There are not wholesale changes that we needed to make,” Cole said to the media on video from Steelers.com. “It was just trying to find little tweaks here and there that could make our runs better, our protection better, our routes better. It was just kind of finding that fine detail and honing in on it and um, seeing what we could do better.”
It’s interesting for Cole to come out and say that big changes were not necessary to improve the offense after he visibly expressed his displeasure in the play call on fourth-and-one that resulted in Pittsburgh turning the ball over on downs and ultimately saw Pickett go down with a knee injury. Cole would later dismiss his frustrations on the field against Houston when speaking to the media, stating that he and the rest of the offensive line must do a better job blocking the play that had been called at that moment.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Cole controlled his initial frustrations in the heat of the moment when speaking to the media in the aftermath, acknowledging that complaining about the playcalling or the scheme would only create dissension in the locker room which is the last thing that Pittsburgh needs. There is no denying that the offensive line must block better going forward. Cole especially, as he has been a liability this season after a promising 2022 campaign. Still, the blame falls on far more than the offensive line’s shoulder or that of Pickett and the receivers.
Given how bad Pittsburgh’s offense has been through the first five games of the year (and the first 3.5 quarters against the Ravens), you know that it’s more than just execution errors by the players as a collective. The offense is getting out-coached by the opposing defense on a weekly basis as Canada and OL Coach Pat Meyer aren’t calling plays/running schemes that best complement their personnel and what’s best in given situations on the field.
Hopefully, we will see tweaks to Pittsburgh’s offense regarding the scheming of pass protections, run fits, and route combinations that better suit the offense this coming weekend against the Los Angeles Rams. We saw Pittsburgh’s offense improve after the bye week last season, albeit still looking rather pedestrian in the passing game. Regardless, Pittsburgh needs to hang their hat on something offensively, and getting back to a heavy run game with some play-action shots sprinkled in for WR George Pickens and Calvin Austin III wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
