The Pittsburgh Steelers were eliminated from playoff contention just as they were starting to find their groove as a team. The 31-17 loss to the Buffalo Bills abruptly ended their season and put an end to the short-lived cohesion that the unit was starting to experience.
There was quite a bit of turnover on the roster last offseason, and it was QB Kenny Pickett’s first season entering the year as the starter. There were expected to be growing pains, but maybe not to the extent the Steelers experienced them early in the season.
TE Pat Freiermuth reflected on the team’s season and what it will take to finally get over the hump and win a playoff game in his Tuesday media availability posted on the team website.
“Find our identity quicker. Obviously, we found it late in the year, and it worked for us, and we gotta continue to hone on that in camp next year,” Friermuth said. “Have that earlier in the season, and I think that would be big for us.”
The offense performed so poorly for the first few months of the season that offensive coordinator Matt Canada was fired in an unprecedented move for the Steelers’ organization. The season can almost be broken up into three portions to show how the offense progressed over time.
Before the bye, the Steelers averaged 268.2 yards of total offense per game. From the bye until when Matt Canada was fired, they averaged a slightly better 292 yards per game as the rushing attack started to come alive. Then there was the final portion of the season under interim offensive coordinator Eddie Faulkner and interim play caller Mike Sullivan. During that stretch, they averaged a much more respectable 338.9 yards per game on offense.
There was steady progression and, in the midst of it all, a number of changes. Broderick Jones became the starting right tackle, Canada was fired, Pickett got hurt, Mitch Trubisky got benched, and Mason Rudolph led the way for the final three weeks of the regular season. One of the things that remained the same throughout the growth was the emergence of the running game.
“We were able to run the ball,” Freiermuth continued when asked a follow-up about what exactly their identity was. “It opened up our play action and our pass game, so we just gotta be able to click on all cylinders.”
The Steelers found their identity in leaning on the physicality of their offensive line and pairing it with the one-two punch of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. That allowed them to control the ball on offense and forced opposing teams to respect the run with an extra man up near the line of scrimmage.
Once that was fully realized, Rudolph and the offense were able to start taking deep shots downfield with increased frequency. Rudolph had nine explosive passing plays of 20-plus yards over his three-game regular-season stretch. Three of those were 60-plus-yard touchdowns.
Early in the season, the Steelers were an offense with no established identity. They wanted to play bully ball, but they never committed to that until much later in the year. Once they did, they were able to start building on top of it. Mike Tomlin will have to hire a new offensive coordinator for next season. Along with that comes the possibility of another system change. They might experience more growing pains with that change, but priority zero will be ensuring a much quicker path to establishing an identity in 2024.
