The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: Can the offense lean on the ground game for the rest of the season?
It wasn’t too long ago, as QB Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow was beginning to wear down before his major injury in 2019, that the Steelers had to shift focus mid-season. Roethlisberger had been the focal point of the offense for the better part of a decade, but suddenly it had to become RB Le’Veon Bell.
And it worked, and they rode that ride into the postseason and even managed to win some. To some degree, this includes Bell’s work in the short-area passing game as what they referred to as a run-game extension, but you get the point: they leaned heavily on their running game, and on their running backs generally.
The Steelers have the best running game that they have since that time more than half a decade ago with Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. Indeed, they have the best one-two combo that they’re actually using for a while. Bell had some quality backups in DeAngelo Williams and James Conner, but were never used as such when he was healthy.
The Harris-Warren combination is another matter, which potentially strengthens this team’s ability to lean on them even more. Harris doesn’t need 350-plus touches by the end of the season because they have Warren.
But is this running game good enough to lean on, enough to win enough games to get into the postseason? They managed to rush for 172 yards last week and still put up just 10 points. Granted, they scored 20-plus points in the prior two weeks while leaning on the run game.
But we’re only working with a three-game sample, as well. They were held to under 90 rushing yards in the three games prior and in five of the first seven games. They never rushed for 115 or more yards in any of the first seven, but have topped 160 in the past three.
