Steelers' Mike Tomlin says offense needs to 'Get their Mojo back'

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been downright awful on offense to start the 2023 season. Lethargic, inept, and incapable, outside of a huge George Pickens TD vs. Cleveland, there has been little to be excited about. So Coach Tomlin wants the team to get back to their winning ways on offense, even though that goes back […]

Rob Gregson — NFL News Writer

Sep 20, 2023 12:38 PM EDT

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been downright awful on offense to start the 2023 season.

Lethargic, inept, and incapable, outside of a huge George Pickens TD vs. Cleveland, there has been little to be excited about.

So Coach Tomlin wants the team to get back to their winning ways on offense, even though that goes back years:

"We Need Our Mojo Back"

"We've got to get that mojo that we had in the preseason where we're playing fast and fluid with confidence, individually and collectively," Coach Tomlin told reporters. "We've lost that, to be blunt, in the last several weeks. We're not getting the type of fluidity that we want. It starts with we're not teeing up possession down play, not being in advantageous possession-down circumstances and really making it challenging to sustain drives and in the score points."

Now, I guess you can say the offense was "firing on all cylinders" in the preseason, but they only played one quarter against a starting defense, who largely played vanilla concepts.

The truth is, this offense hasn't had their mojo in years, and certainly not under OC Matt Canada:

The Steelers offense has now gone 36 straight games under OC Matt Canada without gaining at least 400 yards of offense.

There have been 269 instances since 2021 where an offense has gained at least 400 yards in a game.

But again, ZERO by the Steelers during that span.
— Sheil Kapadia (@SheilKapadia) September 11, 2023

And after a Monday night performance that saw the Steelers generate a laughable 252 total yards of offense, that is now 37 straight games without 400 yards, causing Pittsburgh to reach a new low when it comes to explosiveness and effiencey.

Pittsburgh currently ranks 32nd in EPA per play, and 31st in success rate when they have the ball, further indicating Matt Canada's system isn't suitable for Sundays.

Now, I'm not calling for anyone's job, nor do I have any influence on who's hired and fired in Pittsburgh. But no matter how much Pittsburgh changes the independent variable(s) (WRs, offensive linemen, running backs, QB) the dependent variable has been poor offensive architecture with Canada as the control.

So unless he pulls a rabbit out of his playbook, there is a chance no "Mojo" will be found with Canada does the cooking.