As we’ll do every week to get you ready for the upcoming game, our X factor of the week. Sometimes it’s a player, unit, concept, or scheme. Here’s our X factor for Thursday’s game against the Tennessee Titans.
X FACTOR: Interior O-Line
The formula is simple. If Pittsburgh runs the ball, its offense can at least look competent. The Steelers can stay on schedule, sustain drives, chew up some clock, and help open up their passing game. But the Titans aren’t an easy group to run on. Similar to the Jacksonville Jaguars, it’s a strong front.
They’re allowing 3.8 yards per carry, four rushing scores, with a group of known and unheralded players. Jeffery Simmons is their top name and their Cam Heyward. Simmons almost never comes off the field, logging 87 percent of the team’s snaps. He is one of the league’s top interior defensive linemen in a league full of them. Alongside him is the criminally underrated Denico Autry, a strong run stuffer with 22 sacks in 36 games for the Titans. Teair Tart is a pure run stuffer, and they have a pair of talented pass-rushing ends in Harold Landry and Arden Key.
The Steelers’ interior line has to make this offense move. Literally. The run game was invisible against the Jaguars and the Steelers paid the price with an offense that did nothing except for one touchdown drive. If they want to avoid their first losing streak of the season, the run game has to get this offense on schedule. And that comes from guard to guard: left guard Isaac Seumalo, center Mason Cole, and right guard James Daniels. None of the three have played well enough this year. Seumalo has been average and played poorly against Jacksonville, Cole has been among the most disappointing Steelers, and Daniels hasn’t taken the jump expected in the prime of his career and second year with the team.
Now, they have one of their toughest matchups of the season. Assuming QB Kenny Pickett plays, he’s beat up with sore ribs and who knows what else. Even before getting hurt, he got crushed against Jacksonville. The Steelers want to run the ball to shorten the game, chew additional clock, and help protect Pickett from doing too much. That can’t just be the hope but the goal and the outcome.
