Steelers Sticking with RPO Game Despite Illegal Man Downfield Penalties

PITTSBURGH — The have been 50 accepted penalties for an offensive player being illegally down field on a forward pass in the NFL this season. Five of them — one tenth — have been called against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Steelers and Miami Dolphins are tied with the NFL lead with five illegal man downfield penalties. The Dolphins, with an RPO-heavy attack led by Tua Tagovailoa, make sense as one of the leaders in that regard.

The Steelers do run some RPO plays, but not to nearly the same extent as the Dolphins or many other NFL squads. The Pittsburgh offense is tied for 15th-most RPOs run in the NFL this season. Instead, it just seems that the Steelers have been less diligent in terms of finding the sweet spot between bending and breaking the rules.

When asked about whether he felt like there have been more of those called against his team this season after another one against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8, head coach Mike Tomlin said, “It seems like it. It really does.”

During the bye week, Tomlin said that the team’s coaching staff spent a lot of time looking at self-scouting and looking at what they’ve done well and not so well, with an eye toward minimizing the latter and maximizing the former.

So will the RPO end up on the chopping block? Tomlin doesn’t think so.

“I think that component of the game is here to stay,” Tomlin said. “I think that we all have to get better in tune with what the officials want and what they’re looking at from an officiating standpoint. That’s obvious just by the nature of the number of calls that’ve been made in that area not only against us, but against everyone.”

Tomlin did say that he thinks the Steelers’ misdirection passing has been one of the team’s offensive bright spots, and has been one of the things that rookie Kenny Pickett has excelled in to this point this season.

So the Steelers are going to keep running them, with the onus falling to the offensive linemen to avoid drawing as many penalties as they have in the first half of the season.