The Steelers Offense Has No Clue Why They’re Struggling: ‘We Don’t Know’

PITTSBURGH — The Steelers hoped that firing Matt Canada could jumpstart something within their offense. Under Canada, that group seemed listless and players had enough after losing to the Cleveland Browns. But somehow, it seems that the team might be collapsing into further disarray offensively. Since Canada got fired, the team averaged just 14.7 points per game. That’s a regression from the Canada-led group. But Pittsburgh keeps beating its head.

The Steelers players sound like a broken record. Mike Tomlin gets testy in press conferences. Do you want to know why? I’ve been asking them the same things for 14 weeks. Very little has changed in this offense since Week 1, and you can argue they are even worse now. Mason Cole summed it up pretty well but so did Johnson.

“You guys might want a colorful answer, but it’s really execution,” Cole said. “Like, that’s it. The stuff is there, we aren’t executing.”

Diontae Johnson did not have a much better answer.

“I think it comes down to execution,” Johnson said. “We can’t do much more than that. You just have to watch the film and get back to work. That’s all you can do.”

That happens when the guys have little to no idea how to fix this. It’s basic things. Getting the play calls in on time, running the correct route depth, catching the football, lining up correctly, and communication gaffes. Everything is at the bottom of the pit. It has not improved, not one bit. The timing and rhythm are off. There are no details. That’s coaching. The players are not blameless, but when this happens, you must ask yourself ‘why’ at some point. That all comes after firing Matt Canada. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Second-year tight end Connor Heyward seemed perplexed by it all, too.

“I feel like we’re still searching for what that is,” Heyward said when asked for the cause of offensive struggles. “We don’t know what it is in particular but obviously it’s not right, we’re not driving the ball, we’re not scoring….we’re professionals. We’re Pittsburgh Steelers. We’re capable, we have the guys and everything but it’s Week 14 and we’re still trying to put it together. That can be an issue but I feel like the guys we have are going to come together and we’re going to pull this together these last four games.”

With the same things popping up each week, the Steelers need to find some answer, but it seems like this is just who they are at this point.