The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their first game of the 2024 regular season on the road on Sunday afternoon against the Atlanta Falcons and they’ll enter that contest listed as a slight underdog. Below are five key things that I believe the Steelers will need to do in that road game on Sunday to come away with their first win of the 2024 season.
By George, Get Him Involved Early – Regardless of who starts at quarterback on Sunday for the Steelers, the focus of the offensive game plan is sure to be running the football early and often with success. While that’s fine and dandy, and hopefully some of that happens, Steelers WR George Pickens still needs to be involved early in Sunday’s game in some form or fashion. Pickens is now the team’s top wide receiver and there’s no question about that. In the past, we’ve seen it take a little while in games for him to get his first catch, and we have seen how he’s reacted to that a few times as well.
Scheming Pickens a few early targets on Sunday, even if they’re just quick outs or wide receiver screens, feels like a necessity, especially due to the fact that he’s developed his ability to get yards after the catch. Seeing Pickens used more on quick slants is yet another option that should be considered as we certainly haven’t seen enough of those kinds of targets in his first two NFL seasons. In short, the Steelers need to get George the ball early on Sunday.
Here’s To Stopping You, Mr. Robinson – During his 2023 rookie season, Falcons RB Bijan Robinson was criminally underused. In fact, he didn’t even register 16 total touches in six games in 2023. With a new coaching staff now in place in Atlanta, in addition to a new veteran quarterback in Kirk Cousins that is coming off a 2023 Achilles injury, we can probably expect Robinson to touch the football more than 16 times on Sunday against the Steelers.
Not surprisingly, the Steelers were 1-5 in 2023 when they allowed more than 138 yards rushing in a game. Conversely, they went 4-1 in games that they gave up fewer than 96 yards rushing in a game. Cousins is not a threat to run against the Steelers so the onus of the Pittsburgh defense on Sunday needs to be to shut down Robinson and force the Atlanta offense to beat them through the air.
Plenty Of Pitts Stops – Falcons TE Kyle Pitts, a fourth-year tight end out of Florida, certainly didn’t put up the kind of stats in 2023 for Atlanta like most thought he would. He ended 2023 with just 53 receptions for 667 yards and three touchdowns. He’s the kind of tight end that can be used like a wide receiver and thus gets moved around quite a bit on offense as part of 11 personnel groupings, which the Falcons are likely to use extensively under their new coaching regime. With Cousins likely to get rid of the football quickly on Sunday, Pitts figures to receive a lot of targets within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.
Pitts is likely to be lined up against a Steelers inside linebacker or dime or nickel defender on Sunday. Who will be tasked with covering Pitts? We might see Steelers ILB Patrick Queen, S DeShon Elliott, and possibly even CB Cory Trice Jr., all get asked to do so on Sunday. Trice’s reps against Pitts, assuming he gets any, are likely to come with him on the field in a dime package. According to Pro Football Focus, Pitts could be the primary receiving option on Sunday when the Steelers blitz. He was targeted at the fourth-highest rate among tight ends when opposing defenses blitzed in 2023. Pitts is a dangerous offensive weapon for the Falcons and the Steelers can’t let him have a big game if they hope to win the game.
Let It Make Spence – While most fans of the team might be concerned about Steelers rookie C Zach Frazier making his first NFL start on Sunday, the real concern might need to be funneled toward second-year offensive lineman Spencer Anderson instead. As a rookie in 2023, Anderson played one meaningless snap, and it was as an inline tight end at that. Anderson’s first NFL start will happen on Sunday and at left guard in place of the injured Isaac Seumalo. While Anderson did play up and down the offensive line during his college career at Maryland, he logged just 43 total snaps at left guard, specifically. Even this past preseason, Anderson logged just 16 total snaps at left guard. During the 2023 preseason, he logged a total of 54 snaps at the position.
The Steelers offense will face an Atlanta defensive line on Sunday that features Grady Jarrett, David Onyemata and Zach Harrison. In short, Anderson will for sure be tested on Sunday. While the Steelers offensive line must play well as a whole on Sunday, Anderson’s play, specifically, especially if it’s really good, could play a big part in the overall success the unit has in Atlanta.
Stop Being So Negative – The Steelers offense will look a lot different in 2024 as a new scheme has been implemented with new OC Arthur Smith now in charge. Not only that, but the offensive line will also have two players making their first NFL starts on Sunday in Frazier and Anderson. During the preseason, and according to our game charting, the Steelers offense registered 35 negative plays and that includes ones in which penalties were involved. With Wilson or Fields on the field during the preseason, the offense registered 22 negative plays. Those two quarterbacks also logged a combined total of 96 offensive snaps during the preseason.
In short, roughly one out of every four offensive plays run during the preseason resulted in negative yardage in some way. Sure, it was only the preseason, but it can’t be ignored just the same. There were also way too many aborted snaps during the preseason and that’s something we can’t see on Sunday. While the Steelers offense begins to jell as a collective, overcoming negative plays within drives is going to be hard to do. That’s even the case for an established offense. If the Steelers’ offense can come out of Sunday’s game with an incredibly small number of negative plays, including turnovers, the team should have a good chance of returning home from Atlanta with a positive number in the win column.
