Flavell's Five Thoughts: New Day of Steelers Offense
"O' Canada! Where was this offense at?" Pittsburgh Steelers fans will be singing that line for the next week after finally reaching 400 yards of offense for the first time in nearly 60 games in Week 12.
Kenny Pickett played about as complete of a game as he has in his NFL career. Najee Harris just missed 100 yards. Things are trending upward offensively for the Steelers on Eddie Faulkner and Mike Sullivan's watch.
Not everything went according to plan, though. Jaylen Warren fumbled in the red zone. Diontae Johnson looked disinterested in recovering the football after already making headlines this week for his locker room and sideline behavior. The Steelers' defense dropped a few interceptions that could've teetered things further in their favor.
There is always something to clean up, but the positives vastly outweighed the negatives in the victory over the Cincinnati Bengals that pushed the Steelers to 7-4 on the season.
It was one of the few wins this season that didn't feel like it came via fluke.
Stating the Obvious
It's not time to call the Steelers offense a juggernaut by any means. Their stalled drives left a good chunk of points on the board. However, things seemed much more fluid and streamlined for an offensive scheme that remained largely the same. It wasn't a coincidence that a non-Matt Canada-led offense looked like at least a competent NFL offense.
The jet sweeps weren't there. Pittsburgh pushed the ball downfield and over the middle of the field more often than they had at any point this season. They allowed Pickett the opportunity to push the issue a bit instead of deferring to a receiver within feet of him. With that, turnovers will eventually occur, but Pickett stayed clean in that department, and the Steelers won as a result.
This kind of performance has to be a weight lifted off the shoulders of everyone involved. Pickett threw for a season-high 278 yards and looked poised and in command throughout the contest. Harris averaged 6.6 yards per carry and looked like a former first-round draft selection in doing so. Even Pat Freiermuth had his biggest game of the season, which we'll look at a bit more in-depth in a moment.
The Steelers now have a foundation to build on. They've got some renewed confidence, and, most importantly, the quarterback built up some much-needed confidence as the Steelers trudge on.
They'll face the second-easiest schedule in the AFC the rest of the way. To some Steelers fans, that probably sounds like a nightmare. However, if the offense can get even average quarterback play out of Pickett, there is room for a surprise run in the AFC.
Time of Possession Stats Can't Be Understated
If you recall back to last season, you should remember that the Steelers made a run down the stretch where they finished 7-2 after the bye week. Impressive, right? They did so with a defense that began to soften late in games and allow points, but the offense was able to make miracles happen and come from behind to win.
Too often, the offense looked anemic early in games, and many three-and-outs led to the defense playing entirely too much. Fast forward to this season, and it has been a whole lot of the same... until this game.
Not only did the Steelers out-gain the Bengals, they out-possessed them by a 37:17-22:43 margin. This allowed the defense to actually rest for more than three offensive plays before having to go back out on the field. It seems like such a small point in this win, but after watching the defense tire out late last season, this occurrence is welcomed with open arms.
If the newly-led offense can at least post games similar to this on a few occasions down the stretch, that will be a massive development for the offense if the Steelers can continue to take care of business against a weak schedule and sneak into the playoffs. They'll need all the rest they can get if they are to make the playoffs and run into a team like Baltimore or Kansas City.
'Muuuuuuuuuth!
Man, was it good to see Pat Freiermuth get some run with the offense or what? The Steelers' first play of the game on offense defied everything they had done prior to this contest. A tight-end seam route in the middle of the field on a ball that traveled more than five yards in the air? Blasphemy!
It kick-started the game and one of Freiermuth's best showings of his career. His pass-catching prowess has never come into question. He is one of the best in the game at his position when healthy, and he proved it with nine catches on 11 targets for 120 yards. Nine catches matched his total for the season coming into today, and he hauled in his season's worth of catches in just one game.
Canada's offense refused to use tight ends over the middle of the field. When it did, they used Connor Heyward religiously while Freiermuth was out with his hamstring injury. Sullivan and Faulkner put together a game plan for Pickett to target the former Penn State product early and often.
I wrote last week about the need to start using tight ends more often, specifically Freiermuth, who they used a second-round pick on just a few years back. This was a huge game for him and hopefully a sign of things to come for an offense that has a few tight ends capable of being a part of the passing game plan.
Same-Old Story on Defense
T.J. Watt is playing at a Hall-of-Fame level. Cam Heyward made his presence known with a sack. Someone on defense forced a timely turnover. Copy and paste for next week.
Seriously, it is getting out of hand how many playmakers this defense has. They didn't face good quarterback play in this one as Bengals' backup Jake Browning took care of the ball for the most part but threw an interception near the red zone that the Steelers turned into seven points the other way with a game-melting drive.
Trenton Thompson nearly had his first-career interception in last week's loss to Cleveland. He wasn't allowing the chance to get away again this week. He stepped in front of a bad read by Browning and made a play near the sidelines to halt a 10-play drive where the Bengals looked poised to add to their 7-3 lead at the time. Instead, Thompson made the play.
That was the Steelers' only turnover of the afternoon; however, they got to the quarterback on a few occasions. Watt had two sacks, while Heyward added one. Even Nick Herbig made a wonderful play as he was caught between going for the sack and staying in coverage on the receiver out near the sidelines after Browning rolled out of the pocket. He closed quickly and made a sweet play to get his second-career NFL sack of his rookie season.
The list of quarterbacks the rest of the way for this defense should have them foaming at the mouth: Kyler Murray, one of Mac Jones or Bailey Zappe, Gardner Minshew, Jake Browning again, Geno Smith, and Lamar Jackson. Jackson is the biggest threat, but the Steelers have done a good job of neutralizing him. Smith is in the midst of a late-career resurgence. Murray will be playing in just his third game after his ACL reconstruction surgery. The rest are backup quarterbacks.
In the past, the Steelers have learned their lesson on taking it easy on teams, but at the same time, it is hard to see many of these quarterbacks having a wealth of success against the Steelers' defense the way Brock Purdy and C.J. Stroud did earlier this season.
What to Do About Johnson?
Wide receivers around the league have taken on the label of "divas" because they are quick to whine if balls don't come their way. We've already seen George Pickens take issue with his offensive usage, and then Diontae Johnson got into a small argument in the Steelers' locker room last week.
Fights happen more often than we are led to believe inside locker rooms. You can either view it as the locker room falling apart or simply two passionate guys - Johnson and Minkah Fitzpatrick - united for the same goal, butting heads. Without being in the locker room, no one knows what actually happened. Similar to Johnson's alleged dust-up with Mitchell Trubisky last season, no one is actually aware.
What is seen, however, is how he acted last weekend on the sidelines or how he showed very minimal effort on the play where Warren fumbled. That will show up on tape, and if Mike Tomlin has any accountability, Johnson will hear all about it.
His lack of effort would be a bench-able offense, in my opinion. You can't show little effort in blocking, look directly at the ball when it is on the ground, and assume the play is over the way Johnson did. That is unprofessional and unacceptable to the ten other players on the field who actually want to be there.
Passionate players are going to have outbursts at times, but it seems like Johnson is involved in a negative light more often than not. That is not a good thing to have going on inside of the team. You can be mad as a player, but keep it in-house and don't allow your lack of targets to become a problem that leaks into the rest of the team.
Winning and making the playoffs needs to be the main goal of the squad as opposed to individual statistics, something multiple receivers on the Steelers have become far too infatuated with this season.
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