One other week, one other largely horrible offensive efficiency from the Pittsburgh Steelers, particularly within the passing recreation.
For the third straight week, Kenny Pickett threw for fewer than 165 yards, finishing simply 14 of 27 passes towards the Cleveland Browns for simply 106 yards on Sunday. He missed a couple of throws, wasn’t on the identical web page together with his receivers all recreation and actually did not know how one can modify to the Browns having extra zone protection than man protection, which was surprising.
The struggles within the passing recreation actually bogged the Steelers down within the mud, although the run recreation was fairly spectacular.
All that, and the Steelers solely scored 10 factors within the 13-10 loss, dropping them to 6-4 on the season.
For head coach Mike Tomlin, he remained not too involved after the loss to Pickett and the passing recreation, stating that he does not actually assume it may be described as Pickett struggling to get going over the previous month, because the Steelers have been operating the ball so properly.
However for Sam Monson of Professional Soccer Focus, Tomlin from an analysis standpoint will get to that time the place it is time to interrogate him and the way he oversees the offense within the Metal Metropolis. Whereas Tomlin clearly needs to play low-scoring, low-event video games and lean on his flashy protection to win these kinds of video games, Sunday’s efficiency confirmed how tough it’s to constantly depend on that model of play.
“It is arduous as a result of on the one hand, it’s extremely arduous to criticize Mike Tomlin, proper? The person is a magician and will get considerably greater than what he can get when it comes to outcomes given the place the group is now and doing so 12 months after 12 months, proper? Similar to this concept of by no means having a dropping season, there’s one thing to that,” Monson stated, in keeping with the video by way of the PFF Week 11 assessment present. “So a giant image, culturally, of what Tomlin can also be doing in that development work on the whole. However, we’ve got been coping with a non-functional, critical violation for one and a half, two years. So at what level must you not defend this and make some modifications which might be extra radical than taking the unhealthy coach out of the field?”
From a nationwide media perspective, it is arduous to criticize Tomlin for the way good he has been all through his profession. As a lot as individuals wish to downplay the no-lose-seasons factor with Tomlin, it is enormous in at the moment’s NFL. If it have been that simple or not such a giant deal, increasingly more coaches and groups would obtain it.
But there’s Tomlin, alone.
That stated, the offense is a significant downside proper now. Issues do not get higher, particularly within the passing recreation. For the fourth straight recreation, Pickett threw for lower than 200 yards. The run recreation has improved with Matt Canada on the sidelines, however for the 58th straight recreation the Steelers did not crack 400 yards of whole offense. Canada was the offensive coordinator for 45 of these video games.
And extra.
Regardless of the ugly offensive stats, Tomlin continues to defend the offense, particularly the passing recreation, stating that the protection dictates issues and that the Browns’ protection had a giant hand in how Pickett carried out on Sunday.
When is sufficient, sufficient?
This can be the best way Tomlin ideally needs to play, however it’s not a sustainable, successful model of soccer, particularly towards good groups. It was telling that rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson regarded higher than Pickett on Sunday, and the Browns’ offense had simple solutions for the quarterback, whereas the Steelers’ offense had nothing like that.
Tomlin has traditionally been an ideal coach, however his obvious incapacity to not acknowledge how unhealthy the offense is and contemplate important modifications is changing into very, very regarding.
