The Pittsburgh Steelers have lost four games in a row, and in all four games, their offense has looked rough. While the defense has had some struggles, it’s a group that did their job in Week 18 against the Bengals, but the offense couldn’t come through in a 19-17 loss. Former NFL QB and current ESPN analyst Troy Aikman, who worked last night’s game, said the Steelers offense needs to get a lot better.
“It’s ugly. They’ve got to be better on that side of the ball. The good news was their defense, that had been struggling played really well against an offense as we know that’s been scoring a lot of points. So that part of it, I think they’ve gotta feel good about. On the other side of it, it’s just got to get a lot better. The passing game has to get a lot better,” Aikman said.
If the Steelers don’t improve offensively, Aikman said the team will once again fail to win a playoff game.
“They’re one and done if they don’t play better on offense than they did tonight. It’s gonna be a short trip in the postseason, and they’ll be looking for their first playoff win since 2016 going into next year.”
While Russell Wilson started off his tenure as Pittsburgh’s starter strong, in recent weeks, all the worst fears about Wilson have started to come true. He’s held onto the football too long, made some questionable decisions when running the ball, and hasn’t done a good job utilizing the middle of the field. The Steelers had a lot of success with Wilson’s deep ball earlier this season, but when the deep ball isn’t there, the offense just hasn’t been clicking.
The Steelers have also struggled to run the ball a bit in recent weeks, but their concerns through the air are a lot more pressing. They’ve been struggling to stay on schedule, and when they do wind up in 3rd and short situations, Wilson has been throwing downfield instead of taking profit and a first down. It simply hasn’t worked out, and while the offensive line should take some blame for the uptick in sacks, a lot of it is on Wilson’s shoulders for not getting rid of the football. It’s a problem he had with the Denver Broncos, and it’s now becoming a problem in Pittsburgh at the worst time.
Mike Tomlin said the Steelers need to learn from what’s gone wrong over the last four weeks, and while the defense seemed to fix a lot of their critical issues ahead of Week 18, the offense still has a long way to go. Aikman’s right that if Wilson and co. can’t figure out how to get back to being the unit they were from Weeks 7-14, the Steelers are going to end yet another season early in January.
