Things went from bad to worse on Thursday night with the Pittsburgh Steelers losing 21-18 to the New England Patriots, dropping to 7-6 on the season and out of the playoff spot they held going into the contest. New England looked like the better team for most of the game despite being 2-10 on the season. The Patriots had their way with Pittsburgh on offense as QB Bailey Zappe threw for three touchdowns while Pittsburgh’s offense continued to struggle with QB Mitch Trubisky at the helm and Kenny Pickett out the next few weeks.
The lack of execution this season has been an oft-discussed topic for Pittsburgh. The offense hasn’t been able to sustain any success to be effective for an entire game while the defense has broken down at the most inopportune times in recent weeks. When asked what needs to change to get over the hump of their execution issues, DL Cameron Heyward responded that the team must turn over every stone possible. That includes making personnel changes if players aren’t executing to the level the team needs them to.
“Either guys learn or you gotta change who’s in there, myself included,” Heyward said to the media via video from the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “If I can’t execute, then you got to take me out. That’s just how the group rolls. That’s the way we’ve always done, but I think that we have the capable men of doing that. I think on a short week it comes down to those execution type of plays. Thursday games always come down to who can make the least amount of mistakes [and that] is usually the team that wins these Thursday nights.”
Former Steelers OC Matt Canada often pointed to execution as the problem regarding why the offense wasn’t moving the ball and scoring points. It became a broken record of an excuse to many Steelers fans as the offensive scheme and play calling under Canada looked flawed as well. Pittsburgh ended up firing Canada after a miserable loss against the Cleveland Browns a few weeks ago. Pittsburgh managed to put up over 400 yards of total offense in its first game without the embattled offensive coordinator, but the results haven’t been good for two straight weeks against two 2-10 teams. The offense has continued to struggle with a new play caller and two different quarterbacks under center.
Heyward’s statement regarding what needs to be done to elicit change is blunt but true. If the players can’t learn how to execute their jobs effectively, they need to be replaced with guys that can. Heyward was willing enough to throw his own hat in there despite being a team captain and the elder statesman of the Steelers’ defense, recognizing fully well that this is a results-driven business.
Results haven’t been where Pittsburgh needs them to be in order to be a playoff-caliber team. These issues that Pittsburgh has been dealing with on offense are nearly two years old now. The players not executing on the field have had numerous chances to learn and make positive change. That change hasn’t come, and Heyward believes that personnel changes need to be made if that’s the case.
However, that decision to make personnel changes isn’t on Heyward. It’s on Mike Tomlin as well as the ownership of this team to put a winning product on the field every Sunday. The Steelers may be sitting here with a winning record, but the product they have put out there on the field this season has been anything but that, winning ugly and losing in disappointing fashion. The personnel changes that need to be made can be discussed ad nauseum, but one thing is for certain. There is a big mess in Pittsburgh right now, and something needs to be done to fix it.
