Mitch Trubisky Wants More from Steelers’ Starting Offense: ‘We Hurt Ourselves’
Mitch Trubisky had a night, to say the least. The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback was the first quarterback to take the field, and he ran for his life for most of the night. However, that does not mean that the positives for Trubisky did not pop through the curtains. In fact, they did. Trubisky’s mobility and ability to escape collapsing pockets became abundantly clear throughout the game.
While Trubisky was still downed one time on the night, it could have been that much worse. Throughout the game, the first-team offensive line struggled, but Trubisky wiggled his way out of three would-be sacks. That does not mean the signal-caller was not disappointed that he could not help drive the team into the end zone, however.
“Yeah. I definitely wanted to score with the three drives, moving the ball a little bit and just — we hurt ourselves,” Trubisky said. “We’ve just got to execute better. And it will be good to look at the film. Got to give credit to their front and what they did defensively. And we’ll watch the film, come back better and get better for next week.”
Those protection issues are exactly what the offensive line does not want to happen again. Center Mason Cole would not chalk up the protection issues as communication issues. Instead, it was more about individual techniques for each of the starting offensive linemen. It will be a key week for the Steelers’ offensive line to go back to the film and watch what they did wrong and could do better.
“We struggled in protection today,” Cole said. “You know, we only have a handful of games. We just have to get better. We’ll go look at the tape and get back to work. It’s good we saw a front like that, though. Those are good pass rushers and we’re going to see a lot of this. We have to go back to the lab and fix it.”
Pittsburgh Steelers OL
Not only was the protection bad for Mitch Trubisky, but the Steelers never got a run game going, either. In fact, Trubisky was his own leading rusher on Saturday. Mike Tomlin cut no corners as he described Trubisky’s performance. While he thought Trubisky played well, it was a hard evaluation with the lack of quality play around him. That particularly falls on the level of the offensive line. They simply did not afford Trubisky the time to go through his reads and progressions in structure.
“I thought Mitch [Trubisky] played well,” Tomlin said. “I thought he created and extended some things when there wasn’t much there. We’ve got to do a better job in protecting him and having some semblance of a running game if you want a fair evaluation, and I’m just being bluntly honest.”
Throughout the night with Mitch Trubisky, sacks and penalties set the Steelers back. It ended with Pittsburgh not finding the end zone with Trubisky in as quarterback. Staying ahead of the chains is something that Trubisky acknowledged they must do better in the future.
“And we’ve just got to be more efficient on first and second down,” Trubisky said. “I think we were in too many 3rd-and-long situations. It doesn’t matter who you play in the NFL. If you’re in 3rd-and-long, it’s going to be tough shedding. We’ve just got to be more efficient on first and second down and stay out of those 3rd-and-longs.”
With how well Kenny Pickett performed, Trubisky will be eager to get back out on the field against the Detroit Lions to prove something. While he was unsure if he would be suiting up in that game, Trubisky hopes that he can play one final time before the regular season rolls around.
“We’ll see. I don’t know how they feel about the third game or whatever it is,” Trubisky said. “But I feel like we’ve just got to continue to keep better rhythm on offense and be better.”
Trubisky very well may have that opportunity on August 28, as the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Lions. However, Trubisky’s overall performance may not mean much if the offensive line in front of him can not help him out.
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