On Sunday in Cincinnati, the Pittsburgh Steelers did just about everything they wanted to do on offense. That is, except for one thing. “Points. Points, that’s what we want”, QB Kenny Pickett told reporters yesterday, via the team’s website. “We want points. Yards are great, but points win you games”.
While the Steelers were fortunate enough that the 16 points they did manage to score were enough to win, the reality is that’s not going to cut it the vast majority of the time. Even Pittsburgh’s own defense has only held three of 11 opponents to 15 points or fewer this year. And they have the No. 1 scoring defense since Week Five.
Still, while they only managed one touchdown and a trio of field goals, there were a lot of positives to take away from Sunday’s win. Starting with the win itself, of course. But they also put up 421 yards of offense, including 153 on the ground and 268 through the air. They won on possession downs and never went three and out. Surely it was a nice change of pace.
“It felt good on Sunday. Obviously, you want more points”, Pickett said, “but after watching the tape and seeing how we executed in the pass game, run game, how kinds balanced off each other, definitely liked our performance, but you want more points”.
The Steelers have only scored more than 17 points five times this season, going 5-0 in those games, and never more than 26. In that game, 14 points were provided by the defense scoring touchdowns on its own. They have been held to 10 points or fewer four times, as recently as the game before last.
The key to turning things around? Finishing drives, of course. The Steelers only came out of four red-zone opportunities with 13 points, including one touchdown on a five-yard run by RB Najee Harris. After a possible touchdown catch by WR Diontae Johnson was ruled incomplete in the first quarter, they lost possession on the next play after a fumble by RB Jaylen Warren.
“When we got to the red zone, we just had a negative play or penalty, we felt, that kind of took us out of that really good rhythm that we were having”, Pickett added in explaining the lack of scoreboard production. “If we get that fixed, the points will follow”.
The problem is, red-zone production has been a year-long issue. They rank 28th in the league in red-zone efficiency, scoring a touchdown 10 times on 23 trips for a 43.5-percent success rate. Even before this game, they were 9 for 19, under 50 percent. Only eight other teams have converted under 50 percent of their red-zone opportunities this season.
And three of the four teams with a worse red-zone percentage are on backup quarterbacks or have made in-season changes at the position, namely the New York Jets, the New York Giants, and the Tennessee Titans. It is imperative that the Steelers get closer to and above 50 percent for the remainder of the season in order to have the sort of success they are searching for. You’re not going to have many high-scoring games without success inside the 20.
