Film Room: What Really Happened on Steelers Game-Winning TD

PITTSBURGH — The debate around the Steelers’ game-winning touchdown has run around town with rampant speculation over the past few days. It all came because of the reaction from offensive coordinator Matt Canada in the coaches’ booth, where Canada appeared to be unhappy with the play result. Some have speculated this is because Kenny Pickett audibled out of his play. That’s not the case, and I’ll break down what happened here and why Canada was likely waiting to hear what they would do following the touchdown and getting ready to call the two-point conversion play.

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— . (@nothighlighthea) October 8, 2023

First, here’s the play from all of the All-22 angles available. You can see Pickett walk up to the line to signal something to the offensive line and running back Jaylen Warren. He then tips out towards George Pickens to let him know something. It all will come down to the front the Ravens are showing and the read Pickett makes off that.

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— Nick Farabaugh (@FarabaughFB) October 11, 2023

The Ravens are showing no safety help over the top. Pittsburgh has three receivers split out, and all those guys appear to be in-man coverage on an island. It’s a pretty simple call — this will be Cover 0 with a blitz coming. Ravens defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald loves to run iterations of cover zero. They come out on different fronts, though, and this front has the right side overloaded for the blitz.

You can hear Pickett yell “Randy!” to his offensive line on the game audio. It’s as simple as this — the ‘Randy’ call is Pittsburgh’s call to slide their protection to the right. As you will note, the entire offensive line does slide to the right to handle the overload blitz to that side. Warren initially is supposed to block out, but now that the offensive line slid right, Warren must come back across Pickett and block outside Connor Heyward to help pick up the extra rusher to that side.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett against the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 8, 2023. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now

When Pickett communicates with George Pickens, he is alerting the go route. No, that does not mean that George Pickens had his route changed. There is a difference between audibling a route and alerting a route. If you audible a route, you change the route completely from the call at the line of scrimmage. If you alert the route, you change the progression within the already-called play. Pickens had a go-route regardless on this play. Pickett was alerting him that he was the primary read, and this ball was likely coming his way. So, it’s an excellent job by Pickett to read the play at the line of scrimmage and put in these checks. He even broke down just what happened.

“Yeah it was protection and then route,” Pickett said. “They went zero. I wanted to make sure we were protected and gave George the route. He went and made a great play. It’s something that we’ve worked all week on, so it’s awesome when you put a lot of time into something and it comes up in a crucial moment like that to win a divisional game in the two-minute drill. It’s awesome.”

Steelers OC Matt Canada pregame against the 49ers, Sept. 10, 2023 – Ed Thompson / Steelers Now

This is a check that the Steelers installed during the week. It’s simple for the offensive coordinator to make this happen. If you know the team is running a lot of Cover 0, get your best man, in this case, Pickens, to be first in the route progression. Pickett mentioned that they practiced this all week long. Talking with others around the locker room, this is a check that Matt Canada installed throughout the week. It’s not something revolutionary; it’s primarily offensive coordinating. Give your quarterback the answers to the test he will face.

It’s an exemplary job all around from the units. Pickett recognized the front and look from practice and film study. Canada gave the answers to the fronts that the Ravens would bring. Pickens did an excellent job off the line of scrimmage, beating Marlon Humphrey. The offensive line and protection scheme worked. So, who deserves credit? Everyone, including the offensive coordinator.