Once again, the offense of the Pittsburgh Steelers came out slow and relatively lethargic, putting them at a significant disadvantage on Sunday on the road against the Houston Texans. The slow start ultimately resulted in an ugly 30-6 loss that saw the Steelers lose their starting quarterback and tight end to injuries and generate just 225 yards of total offense.
As expected coming out of the loss, the Steelers’ offensive pieces aren’t pointing fingers and placing blame. Instead, they again cited the lack of execution resulting in the sloppy performance.
Four games, four showings of the Steelers lacking execution offensively.
For second-year wide receiver Calvin Austin III, that lack of execution put a lot of pressure on the Steelers’ defense, which ultimately folded under said pressure, giving up more than 400 yards of total offense and 30 points to a Houston offense led by rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud.
“We put a lot of pressure on defense when we get off the slow starts. This comes down to simple execution and we obviously didn’t get that done today,” Austin said to reporters following the loss, according to video via Steelers.com. “It’s us, you know what I’m saying? We knew the game plan coming in and what they were gonna present and force us to get on long drives and we just didn’t execute enough to put those long drives together.
“So, we just gotta go right back to work and look at the film and see what we missed and it’s probably gonna be little details on each play.”
Same song, different dance for the Steelers offense following yet another frustrating showing.
At some point it’s no longer about execution. It becomes about the scheme and the stress it does/doesn’t put on defenses.
It’s not as if these struggles and lack of execution are something new under offensive coordinator Matt Canada. This has been going on for 40-some games at this point. There’s no real creativity, no real scheming up splash plays and no real stressing defenses in terms of putting defenders in compromising situations.
The Steelers can look at the film all they want. This is a week-to-week thing at this point, rather than a one-off. The offense is stagnant and isn’t going magically correct itself. Add in the fact that Kenny Pickett got hurt — potentially seriously — on Sunday in the third quarter — and it will just be more of the same.
The slow starts, the lack of execution, all that puts so much stress on the Steelers’ defense overall, which wears that group out. Granted, they weren’t good on Sunday either, but it’s heavy lifting for them week after week. That’s not sustainable.
