If you want one stat to sum up the Pittsburgh Steelers’ miserable offensive season, you’ve come to the right place. The Steelers are in the midst of their worst offensive season in more than 50 years with an output that hasn’t been this bad since 1970.
Through 14 games this season, the Steelers have just 20 offensive touchdowns. Not only is that one of the worst numbers in football, it matches the number of offensive scores Miami Dolphins RB Raheem Mostert has this season. Scoring twice in Sunday’s blowout win over the New York Jets, Mostert is up to 20 on the year, a franchise record.
If you’re wondering, the Steelers’ record for offensive touchdowns in a season is 16, set by RB Willie Parker in 2006.
Mostert is part of one of the NFL’s best offenses. The Dolphins’ 31.5 points per game is a league-high and would be the most by a team in a single season since the Green Bay Packers registered 31.8 points per game in 2020.
Go down the rabbit hole a little further and there’s only been one week all year in which the Steelers had more season scores than Mostert did, after Week 11 when Pittsburgh had one more than Mostert. He tied things back up after Week 12 and they’ve matched touchdown-for-touchdown ever since.
In only four weeks of the year did the Steelers’ offense score more touchdowns than Mostert did that week: Week Seven, Week Nine, Week 10 (Miami was on a bye), and Week 11.
There are three games to break the tie. And it’s hard not to lean toward Mostert at this point. Coming into the year, there were high hopes Pittsburgh’s offense would make the jump. I predicted and projected them to average around 21 points per game. Instead, they’re 28th in football averaging just under 16 points and trying to top what they did in 2019 without Ben Roethlisberger, finishing the year putting up more than 18 per game.
The Steelers/Mostert stat is silly. .It’s supposed to be. With three games to go and the book closing on Pittsburgh’s playoff chances, watching this race becomes the most interesting thing about the team.
