By the end of Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings in Ireland, the Pittsburgh Steelers will be almost a quarter of the way through their season. The “early-season” excuse stops here, which means it’s time for the different units to start rounding into form. For the Steelers’ offense, Aaron Rodgers has a goal in mind.
“I think the next big improvement will be the run game, getting over 100 yards,” Rodgers said via the Steelers’ website. “We’ve seen a lot of two-high safeties, and when you’re seeing that, you’re not able to push the ball downfield as much as you’d like to. So in order to get some of that down the field passing game going, we need to run the ball better.”
The Steelers offense may look fairly balanced in the box score with 88 passing and 67 rushing attempts so far this season, but the vast majority of those passing attempts are just an extension of the run game with screen passes and other looks at or behind the line of scrimmage.
With the run game not working, they’ve had to manufacture low risk plays to attempt to possess the ball. Because of that, the deep passing game has been almost non-existent. Teams are opting to park two deep safeties to keep a lid on any deep passing attempts and daring the Steelers to beat them underneath.
In order to unlock the deep passing game and a full complement of plays available to Arthur Smith and Aaron Rodgers to call, the run game must start clicking.
Right now, they are averaging 63 rushing yards per game. Jaylen Warren had nearly half of that average on his first drive of last week’s game before the rushing attack stopped working. Our Alex Kozora broke down what has made the Steelers’ run game so poor this season. Check that out for in-depth video analysis, but players and coaches on the team have been pointing to “popcorn” issues.
It isn’t the same player every time, and it isn’t the same issue every time. But there always seems to be at least one critical mistake that dooms a running play before it has a chance to really work. Too many failed run plays then dissuades the team from sticking with it, and they get right back into the cycle of manufactured quick passing as an extension of the run game.
Rodgers has been in the league a long time, and he’s seen just about every tactic a defense can throw at him. It doesn’t matter if he’s the preeminent master of play-action—and he is—if teams are able to play two-high safeties with no threat of a run game.
Warren showed signs of life in the run game last week, but he was just added to the injury report with a knee issue late in the week with a “questionable” game status. If he can’t go, it’s hard to imagine the run game finally taking off in Week 4 against this Vikings defense.
