The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense struggled again in Thursday night’s 29-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, adding fuel to the calls for the team to switch to first-round pick Kenny Pickett.
Coach Mike Tomlin, however, isn’t ready to have that discussion.
The Steelers lost Thursday’s game, dropping to 1-2 on the season. “I’m not in that mindset,” said Tomlin.
The answer to that question is definitively no. I’m interested in reviewing this tape and figuring out how we can improve together.
On Thursday night, Trubisky took more chances in pushing the ball downfield than he did in the first two weeks. It was one of the biggest criticisms of the offense in the first two games. Despite that, he only completed 20-of-32 passes for 207 yards and no touchdowns. Per pass attempt, that’s still only 6.4 yards.
It might seem like the obvious move for a struggling offense to change quarterbacks, but their problems go far beyond that. The offensive line has struggled in the running game, the wide receivers had a tough night on Thursday with some potentially significant drops, and an offensive lineman was illegally downfield, wiped out a huge gain that could have put the Steelers in a position to take an eight-point lead.
Additionally, the Steelers have an overly conservative scheme that focuses more on preventing turnovers than scoring points.
There have been only 16 points scored by the Steelers offense in three games (a defensive touchdown in this game gave them 23 points), 14, and 17 points.
NFL 2022 won’t be won with that performance.