On Monday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers avoided an 0-2 start to the season. More importantly, they secured a key division win over the rival Cleveland Browns, while avoiding two home losses to begin the season.
In his postgame comments, head coach Mike Tomlin mentioned that his team “won’t apologize for winning,” because winning in the NFL isn’t easy. But there are some glaring issues for the Steelers, and most of those lie on the offensive side of the football.
Steelers Offense Struggling
Monday’s 26-22 win was due in large part to the effectiveness of the Pittsburgh defense, which was led by edge rushers T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith. Both made game-changing plays and scored a defensive touchdown.
Pittsburgh’s offense mustered just 255 yards of offense, and if you take away the 71-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Kenny Pickett to second-year wideout George Pickens, the Steelers had under 200 yards of total offense. Going 4-for-14 on third down, plus never once sniffing the red zone, will make fans uneasy, and that was definitely the case on Monday night in Steel City.
Fans Chant Fire Canada
It’s no secret that Steelers fans have had enough of offensive coordinator Matt Canada, and things seemed to get worse during Monday night’s ugly offensive showing. The chant of “fire Canada” could be heard throughout the raucous and sold-out stadium. Following the game, Tomlin addresses the offensive woes.
“We have to get our mojo back,” Tomlin said. “We have to get that mojo we had in the preseason where we’re playing fast and fluid with confidence individually and collectively. We’ve lost that, to be blunt, in the last several weeks.”
Nothing went right for the Steelers offense. They couldn’t run the football, Pickett struggled to deliver the football accurately. Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz seemed to have a firm read on what the Steelers were doing, and he confused Pickett at times.
Tomlin Says Relax No Rash Decisions
Despite his team’s struggles offensively, Tomlin isn’t ready to make a change at offensive coordinator, even with his team rushing for a league-low 96 yards in two games.
The paltry rushing numbers through two games make them just the fourth team in league history to have less than 100 rushing yards total in the first two games. Running the football has always been a staple of successful Steelers teams.
“We’re not going to have knee-jerk reactions in terms of trying to make wholesale changes in an effort to change that outcome, but we do acknowledge two is a pattern,” Tomlin said. “We’ve had two outings that are not up to snuff in that regard. It has our attention, as we’re preparing for the next one. We’re all in this thing together — we’re not assigning blame for anyone. Obviously, it starts with coaching — we’ve got to coach better.”
Without saying Canada needs to be better outright, Tomlin said it. In fact, Canada’s job was in jeopardy until last season’s late run that kept Tomlin’s streak of non-losing seasons to start an NFL coaching career at 16.
If things don’t turn around with the offense soon, Canada will be out of a play-calling job for sure.
