Steelers Analysis

Takeaways: Steelers Sky Isn’t Falling, But Foundation Sure Needs Work

Pittsburgh Steelers Takeaways: The sky is not falling after another meager offensive performance, but the Steelers’ foundation does need some work.

Published

3 months ago

August 18, 2024

Alan Saunders

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson gets sacked by the Buffalo Bills in a preseason game on Aug. 17, 2024. -- Ed Thompson / Steelers Now

PITTSBURGH — Through two preseason games against the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills, the Pittsburgh Steelers have scored just 15 points as a team. The first-team offense has scored zero.

That has caused for obvious consternation from all corners, from the ever-reactive Steelers fanbase, to the locker room itself, where backup quarterback Justin Fields sat in his locker and stared at the wall for well after the 15-minute cool-off period before coming to talk to the media. You’d think he just lost a playoff game.

Fields’ passion and disappointment at the team’s effort is probably a good thing. But it’s hard to explain away all of the negativity surrounding the Steelers’ offense through the first two outings. The unit has been marred by mistakes and negative plays that have made it difficult to evaluated the overall level of play.

Last Friday against Houston, they fumbled two snaps, and Fields was sacked twice. This week against the Bills, they took two penalties, Russell Wilson was sacked three times, Fields was sacked once and also fumbled again.

The mistakes, maddening as they are, probably should have been expected. The Steelers have a new offensive coordinator, three new quarterbacks and two new centers, one of which has mostly played guard and the other a rookie. Things like pre-snap penalties and other mental and concentration mistakes are going to happen when you’re that new to your jobs, collectively.

The struggles of the team’s offense live, however, are a bit less expected. Against the Bills, the Steelers started four of their five offensive linemen from the end of last season in the positions where they played last season, and swapped last year’s center Mason Cole for rookie Zach Frazier. That includes a second go-around at right tackle for 2023 first-round pick Broderick Jones, who the team would like to eventually move to the left side, but has spent most of his 2024 on the right, and has played almost exclusively there since Troy Fautanu suffered a knee sprain last week.

Jones was pushed back, and Greg Rousseau split him and Najee Harris for the first sack. The second time, Rousseau beat Darnell Washington — something I don’t think a single Steelers pass rusher has all training camp — and forced Wilson to step up into the pocket, where Ed Oliver had pushed back Isaac Seumalo. There’s no rookie involved there. There’s no level of inexperience or a player playing a new position. That’s two of the Steelers’ better pass protectors getting their butts whipped.

When even Darnell Washington and Isaac Seumalo are getting driven back into their quarterback, you know it was a rough day all around for the offensive line. pic.twitter.com/S81dx9pELc

— Alan Saunders (@ASaunders_PGH) August 18, 2024

Then, Rousseau might’ve made a meme of out of Jones for his third sack, tossing him out of the way with an inside move before smashing Wilson.

GROWN man play here oh my

Greg Rousseau kicked Broderick Jones right out the club 😂#BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/I25AHICPtW

— Carl Jones (@Jones11_) August 17, 2024

“I thought we didn’t do a good enough job of protecting the quarterback,” head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game. “We’ve got to do a better job in pass protection than we did not only in possession downs but just in general. I was really up front with the group about it in that regard. That can’t be a problem for us. We’ve got to be better than we were tonight in that area.”

Tomlin wasn’t just saying it to the media, either.

“I think they know that we have to be better up front,” Fields said after the game. “Coach T made that statement after the game. There’s room for all of us to be better, me included. We’ll get back to work and get better.”

It wasn’t all negative from the offensive line. Frazier looked largely fine in his first NFL start. Spencer Anderson has come along nicely since his move to guard, and Mason McCormick didn’t have any glaring errors in his work with the second team.

“I thought we did some good things,” Anderson said. “Obviously, keeping the quarterback clean was a big issue this game. … It’s not going to be perfect every time.”

The offensive line play being a struggle comes as the team has dumped huge amounts of resources into the position. Jones was a first-round pick last year. Frazier was a second-round pick this year. While they didn’t have Fautanu on the field, there should still be some hope that the line would be improved in 2024 compared to 2023. The Steelers quarterbacks were sacked 36 times in 17 games last season, or 2.1 times per game. They’ve been sacked seven times in two preseason games, or 3.5 per game.

The line remains young on the whole, and will get younger when Fautanu returns. Some growing pains are not entirely unexpected. But the Steelers don’t really have the luxury of time. With a brutal second half of the schedule, the team needs to stack wins in September. They can’t warm up to the 2024 season.

There’s one area where the Steelers can very quickly improve their offensive line. They can run the ball more. They tallied just 14 carries by running backs in the game against the Bills. This needs to be a run-first offense, especially in the early going. You can’t sack the quarterback if Najee Harris has the ball. He had just four carries against Buffalo, and will likely lead the team in touches this year. So maybe don’t panic just yet.

THIRD DOWN BAD, FOURTH DOWN WORSE

The Steelers were 2 of 9 on third down against the Houston Texans and 0 for 1 on fourth down. That was an area that Tomlin said the team needed to improve upon in its second outing. This time around, they went 4 of 13 on third down and 0 for 3 on fourth down.

“That problem lingers,” Tomlin assessed bluntly. “We’re just not winning enough of those right now. … We’re going to be thoughtfully aggressive in possession down ball. We had another fourth down in the red area that we lost again this week, as we work to score touchdowns. We’re just not going to be compromising in that regard. We put too much effort into our prep in that area not to be thoughtfully aggressive in that area. But that’s two weeks in a row where we lost a fourth down play in the tight red zone, for example, and that just shows you the weight and the impact of possession down play.”

Twice, the team’s lack of third down ability made their fourth-down job harder. La’Mical Perine lost three yards on a 3rd an 1, setting up a 4th and 4, where Fields threw incomplete to Connor Heyward. Fields found only a check-down to Perine for four yards on a 3rd and 15, and couldn’t even get to a manageable distance on fourth down.

It’s worth noting that Arthur Smith is likely holding back all of his best third down calls for the regular season. This is a new offense for the Steelers, and it’s not exactly the same as what Smith ran with the Falcons, either. Especially because Smith was just the head coach in Atlanta, anything new that he has put together, that is specifically tailored to this team’s skillset, is not going to see the light of day until Week 1.

FIRST-TEAM DEFENSE

There was one area where the Steelers showed dramatic improvement from the first to the second preseason game, and that’s the first- and second-team defense. After yielding 17 points in the first half to the Houston Texans last week, the Steelers gave up just one field goal to the Bills in this one.

The Bills didn’t play Josh Allen or Stefon Diggs, but the Steelers didn’t play Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt or Alex Highsmith. That’s pretty much a fair fight, and the Steelers dominated it.

“I liked some of the things that we saw, particularly given some of the people that we didn’t play up front on defense,” Tomlin said. “Some of those guys that you could characterize as second teamers, if you will, have had a really good preseason thus far, guys like (Nick) Herbig and Montravius Adams and DeMarvin Leal have done an awesome job, and I think you just kind of felt that. But we were interested in that. That’s why we didn’t play Cam and T.J. and Alex and some of those guys. Those guys are deserving of some varsity-on-varsity reps to show what their capabilities are, and I just thought that that was a positive tonight, their play.”

Herbig, in particular, looked shot out of a cannon at the start of this one. He had four tackles and one and a half sacks in the first quarter alone. Him and Keeanu Benton combined on a pair of sacks, as the second-year Wisconsin alums appear poised to provide the Steelers some significant pass-rush depth.

“That was something we had in the game plan, especially when I’m out there with Keeanu,” Herbig said. “That’s like my brother. Just being on that same side and having that chemistry, we knew it was going to hit a little bit quicker. Just opened up, and I was able to make a play.”