Is the Steelers’ red-zone offense with Russell Wilson as bad as the numbers look?
This has been a hot topic recently and probably won’t go away now that Russell Wilson has lost his first game with the Steelers. Although they went 1-for-2 in the red zone in Cleveland, they still lost to a two-win team, and the offense came up short in the end.
Yes, Wilson and the Steelers scored a go-ahead touchdown and erased a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit. But they also had a chance to close out the game and failed. And then they had a chance to come back a second time and failed again.
And 1-for-2 isn’t horrible in the red zone—it’s literally the best you can do without being perfect. In other words, it’s too small a sample size. Overall, the Steelers are 8-for-19 in the red zone with Russell Wilson. But the Steelers’ red-zone performance against the Browns also illustrates my question.
See, the one drive in which they failed to crack the end zone featured a hiccup so common in the Steelers’ failed red-zone trips. After a four-yard run on 1st and 10 from the 13, Zach Frazier snapped high, resulting in a fumble. Wilson recovered for a loss of seven. So they went from 2nd and 6 to 3rd and 13 without getting to run a play.
You can go back to the Giants game where Russell Wilson threw multiple touchdown-worthy passes the Steelers couldn’t claim. First, a successful completion to George Pickens was erased by an avoidable facemask penalty by Broderick Jones. Then Pickens failed to get both feet down on what was initially ruled a touchdown before getting reversed. In the same game, he had a touchdown lined up with Van Jefferson if the receiver had sat in the zone rather than continue his route.
But you have to ask, if Wilson and the Steelers keep suffering these unusual circumstances, how can we ignore them? Obviously, the Steelers are struggling to play cleanly in the red zone, in various ways—seemingly every possible way.
Sure, if Russell Wilson could just sit in a clean pocket and read the defense, the Steelers could have an excellent red-zone offense. But this isn’t 7-on-7 in Latrobe. The potential is there for a really good unit, but now the Steelers can’t even protect him it seems.
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.
