Steelers continue to ignore simple offensive solution
Everyone is tired of seeing the boring, sluggish, and at times, downright repulsive Pittsburgh Steelers offense. Well, what if I told you there was a simple fix that could flip the narrative on its head, and be the catalyst for more explosiveness? Even worse, it's painstakingly obvious: More Play Action! This a graph that displays […]
Everyone is tired of seeing the boring, sluggish, and at times, downright repulsive Pittsburgh Steelers offense.
Well, what if I told you there was a simple fix that could flip the narrative on its head, and be the catalyst for more explosiveness?
Even worse, it's painstakingly obvious:
More Play Action!
This a graph that displays every NFL offense's effectiveness when using play action (a simple ball fake to the RB that is actually a pass) on early downs, versus how often they use it.
Well, as you can see, Kenny Pickett is nearly off the chart when it comes to how proficient he is as a play-action passer, yet the Steelers, and more specifically offensive coordinator Matt Canada, seemingly ignore the facts. Pickett is on the wrong side of the X-axis, with the offense calling play action at a mere rate of ~23% on early downs.
And we don't need graphs to prove it. If you have consumed any of my instant reactions, then you know how effective Pittsburgh has been off play action:
Now, I'm not saying I want, or expect every play action to pass to go for TDs like the above plays, but the results are obvious.
And please, don't tell me: "You need a dominant run game to successfully run play action." We have years of data, and mountains of film to prove that is all but a myth in the modern NFL.
In fact, there may be an inverse relationship, where the success of play-action actually leads to a more dominant running game.
So in the end, we can only hope that the Steelers staff that is paid to interpret and sort these things out is doing as such, especially with no opponent until Week 7, as Pittsburgh is on a bye week.
Now is the time to self-scout, take a look in the offensive mirror, and come out better on the other side.
Pittsburgh did it last year, going into the bye at 2-6 and coming out 7-2.
Let's see if they can replicate that this year.
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