When most people think of the Steelers’ offense, they picture smashmouth football, with a big, bruising running back grinding away at a defense for long, sustained drives. Jerome Bettis, Franco Harris, and Le’Veon Bell come to mind as players who have been heavily featured in the Steelers’ offense. However, that perfect image of Steelers football hasn’t been close to reality recently, at least when Ben Roethlisberger was on the team. With his retirement a few years ago, it’s seemed like the Steelers have realized they can’t play that pass-happy brand of football anymore, with one major analyst predicting that the Steelers will have much more success in a run-heavy approach this year.
Daniel Jeremiah is a lead analyst at NFL Network, and he also co-hosts the Move The Sticks podcast alongside Bucky Brooks. On their latest episode, the two were drafting teams that had bottom-half offenses last year that they believe will significantly improve this year, with the Steelers being named fairly quick. Jeremiah provided an interesting comparison for the Steelers and what they’re trying to do on offense this year.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers remind me of a group that’s had some top hits, like some top 10 on the billboard chart hits,” he said. “Then they kind of got away and tried to do a different genre. They tried to change up, like, ‘Hey, whatever we do is gonna work,’ and then they said, ‘We didn’t sell as many albums on that one. Let’s go back to what we know and who we are. Let’s put on the matching outfits, the matching hats, and let’s go out there and do our thing.’ That’s your Boyz II Men reference there for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
For those who may not have any clue who Boyz II Men are, Jeremiah is saying that the Steelers got away from their usual brand of football for a while but are now transitioning back after realizing that new style didn’t work for them. The point is that the Steelers have always seen their most success when they’ve been able to effectively run the football, and for a few years, they couldn’t. They relied on their quarterback to throw the ball a ton, and it hasn’t been fruitful for them, especially with Roethlisberger gone.
There’s data to back this change up too. According to FFToday, a fantasy football website that keeps track of team’s stats, from 2013 to 2021, the Steelers’ percentage of run plays on offense hovered around 40%, sometimes even slipping closer to 30%. However, in 2022 those splits got closer to being 50/50, with 2023 seeing the team running an offense almost completely split between the air and ground. This shows just how committed the Steelers have been to getting back to their roots, and while last year’s offense still wasn’t good, more blame should be placed on play calling and execution than the game plan itself.
Jeremiah and Brooks seem to believe the Steelers are going to try to continue making this shift and that it will pay dividends for them. Based on how some players are talking about wanting to be more physical, it seems like a strategy the team is embracing. Arthur Smith’s offense centers on an effective run game, so if the Steelers actually want to score points this year, they’ll need to run the ball. They might not have flipped genres as well as Taylor Swift, but the Steelers are still the best there is at what they do, and what they do is control the clock and play great defense.
