For whatever reasons—surely there are bound to be multiple—the Pittsburgh Steelers more often than not sparsely utilize the middle of the field in the passing game. That seemed to change a week before this past Sunday, spurred on by a returning Pat Freiermuth, the tight end having a career game with nine catches for 120 yards.
Ironic given his limited usage of the middle of the field toward the end of his career, former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger has been pushing for just that, celebrating its usage last week. “That’s what’s been missing, the between-the-hash passing”, he said on his podcast last week. “That was a designed, play-action, get the linebackers to bite down a little bit and hit it over”.
Though the Steelers did not make as much use of the middle of the field in this last game on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, the subject came up during his Monday appearance on the DVE Morning Show in a more theoretical sense.
“I’ve been screaming for them to throw it to the tight end over the middle of the field, whether it’s five yards, 15, 20”, he said. “What happened to the old juke route where the tight end runs to the middle linebacker and he’s one-on-one with the linebacker and he can run right or left or sit? Where’s the stick route, a five-yard breakout?”.
“They haven’t been using the middle of the field enough, even if it’s short”, he added. “I don’t care if it’s five yards. That’s the easiest throw to complete, is a ball right over the middle”. Here’s two minutes of Tom Brady killing people on the juke route, by the way:
QB Kenny Pickett evidently did not play enough in Sunday’s game to qualify for the generation of a passing chart for the game, but Mitch Trubisky’s passing chart shows at least some movement over the middle, including two short completions and one explosive play down the field. That would be the late 26-yard completion to WR Diontae Johnson that came two plays before they connected on a too-little-too-late touchdown.
According to the game book, none of Pickett’s 10 pass attempts were designated as over the middle of the field. That was just a week after having arguably the best game of his career in distributing the ball in that area of the field.
For what it’s worth, during his relief appearance back in Week Eight, Trubisky did make fairly liberal use of the shallows over the middle, though he only attempted one pass in that area of 10-plus air yards, throwing incomplete. There wasn’t a ton of work there during his playing time in 2022, however.
The Steelers invested in the tight end position through the draft and in the slot receiver position via trade this offseason. While they didn’t draft TE Darnell Washington to be a major contributing factor over the middle, WR Allen Robinson II has just 26 catches for 204 yards this year.
