Have the Steelers successfully made key offensive adjustments over the break?
Good news, Steelers fans. The team spent the down time self-scouting and doing other fun stuff, so everything should be good now. At least that’s how things would actually work if we lived in a fairy tale. Even if the Steelers know what they’re doing wrong, that doesn’t mean they can fix it.
One of the Steelers’ biggest problems of late has been their surprisingly bad track record in the red zone. Russell Wilson is supposed to be good at this stuff, yet the Steelers are near the bottom of the league offensively in that area of the field.
Another surprising area in which the Steelers have struggled on offense is in short-yardage situations. Yet again, in those contexts, they have been among the worst teams in the league of late. And the Steelers spent time this week talking about how they look a lot at all these things. They spent time in practice specifically trying to improve in these areas.
Whether or not they improve remains to be seen, and let’s be very clear, we won’t know after one game. While the Steelers need a good game against the Bengals, having one won’t mean they have it all figured out just like that.
No, the Steelers are going to have to show a pattern of sustained improvement in several key areas. A good place to start would be improving their numbers on first down, which puts them behind far too often. An occasional 2nd and 3, or even first-down yardage on first down, would make for a refreshing change of pace. That could just be me talking out of my butt, but I like how that sounds.
Even Arthur Smith has admitted that at times the Steelers could focus more on the plan than the goal. The goal is to win and to achieve victory by any means necessary. But sometimes they just try to achieve victory by their intended means. Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s figure out what works, what doesn’t, and proceed accordingly.
The Steelers’ 2024 season is underway, following another disappointing year ending in a first-round playoff loss. They have had a long offseason since the Buffalo Bills stamped them out of their misery back in January. There are positive signs, but things could jump off the rails any moment.
The biggest question hanging over the team is the quarterback question. Is Russell Wilson earning a lucrative new deal next year, and is Justin Fields still in consideration? How will the team continue to address the depth chart, which is surprisingly still in flux?
The regular season is here, following weeks of camp and preseason games. The Steelers made numerous moves through signings and trade—and release. More than usual, they seemed comfortable creating holes, confident they can fill them. Some they managed to fill, others not so much. Now that we have so many pieces of the puzzle, however, we merely have a new set of questions to ask.
