The Pittsburgh Steelers certainly kept things conservative offensively in Sunday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills. And judging by their measly 166 total yards of offense, that wasn’t the right move. Part of their passiveness has included a lack of action over the middle of the field, something Aaron Rodgers discussed after the game.
“No, there’s no avoiding it. There’s plays called every single week. There’s just not separation, not the coverages dictating the ball going down the middle of the field. Now that play, it did. They played two high, Darnell [Washington] did a nice release, we wrapped around the seam running behind him, and made it a positive play,” Rodgers said via the Steelers’ YouTube channel.
The play Rodgers is referring to is a simple seam route from Washington, which came late in the game, a play which picked up 26 yards. But even then, the game already felt out of reach. And although that was a big play, the Bills were happy to sit back and allow the Steelers to run down the clock at that point.
Really, there wasn’t any sort of aggressiveness from the offense whatsoever. Rodgers missed a drive with an injury, but it was a still a terrible game from him. He completed just 10 passes for 117 yards. It was ugly, and a significant portion of those yards came on shorter routes. Washington and Kenneth Gainwell were each able to make some things happen after the catch, but that was the extent of the Steelers’ explosiveness offensively.
Whether over the middle or not, the only times the Steelers did look to go deep, things didn’t work. Rodgers had Roman Wilson on this route but missed him.
Rodgers says the Steelers wanted to target the middle of the field despite their issues doing so. And to his credit there was one red-zone play in which he did. Here, he expected Jonnu Smith to break inside and threw the ball there. But Smith broke to the outside.
That was one instance, but the issues over the middle are nothing new. It’s especially frustrating since this is the year things were supposed to be different, something OC Arthur Smith said himself back in September.
Unless it’s a running back or tight end breaking something after the catch, there is absolutely no explosiveness to this Steelers offense. It’s just passive, and that includes the lack of aggressiveness over the middle of the field.