There’s a good vibe for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense coming out of a Week 12 win on the road over the Cincinnati Bengals.
That win saw the Steelers generate their best offensive day of the season from a yardage perspective, cracking 400 total yards for the first time in 58 games. They recorded 421 yards against the Bengals, taking advantage of the change in offensive coordinator from Matt Canada to Eddie Faulkner.
Pittsburgh’s run game looked impressive throughout the afternoon with Najee Harris turning in a season-best performance and Jaylen Warren running well as a secondary option. Second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett played fast and free, had good accuracy with his passes throughout the game and attacked down the field, both on the boundary and over the middle.
For starting center Mason Cole, the performance was encouraging. But the Steelers have to score more points, period, and still have some things to clean up moving forward.
“We just gotta put our head down and go to work. There’s still stuff to clean up and there’s still opportunity to be way better,” Cole stated during his session with reporters inside the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex Wednesday, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “We got a good challenge this week with Arizona and the challenges will continue as the year goes on.”
After going through a chaotic week leading up to the matchup with Bengals following the firing of Canada, as well as the Thanksgiving holiday, the Steelers seemingly simplified things and got back to what has been working, all while adding some new wrinkles offensively.
To the Steelers’ credit, the players executed at a high level in the win. But scoring 16 points isn’t enough, regardless of getting the win, especially after generating 421 yards of offense.
There was the Warren fumble in the red zone, and then some missed opportunities to finish drives with touchdowns instead of field goals. Clean up some of those things, execute better in the red zone and the Steelers might realistically have a solid offense down the stretch. It’s far from perfect, there’s no doubt about that.
But there were noticeable improvements in Week 12. The Steelers can’t rest on that success though. Cole knows that. So does everyone else on the offense. Back to work.
