Steelers Offense Continues to Look Sluggish As Team Improves to 2-0
The Pittsburgh Steelers is really impressive, but their offense has been inconsistent at best and often underwhelming through two weeks against less than stellar opponents.
The Steelers have a really impressive defense, but their offense is struggling to put teams away, allowing them to hang around and threaten to win the game. Their defense is outstanding, but when constantly put in difficult situations, some vulnerabilities are being exposed.
Ben Roethlisberger made an incredible throw to rookie Chase Claypool, who went 84 yards for a quick score. Otherwise, Roethlisberger continues to raise questions about just how 'back' he is coming off of his elbow injury. The arm strength isn't in question as illustrated by the deep shot in stride to Claypool, but he's just not as sharp as he has been in years past.
Perhaps that's simply a matter of time and instead of struggling to put away the Denver Broncos or New York Giants, they will start blowing teams out, making these concerns seem unwarranted. For now, an offense centered around the quarterback isn't getting enough from the future Hall of Fame signal caller, who suddenly looks very mortal.
The team is still without David DeCastro and that is making a huge difference up front. Chukwuma Okorafor was an upgrade from Zach Banner, who tore his ACL in last week's game. Matt Feiler was fine stepping in for Stefen Wisniewski. The unit overall still seems to be pretty pedestrian.
James Conner's big run for 59 yards proved to be the closer against the Broncos, but up until that point, the Broncos more than had the Steelers running game in check, which only put more pressure on Roethlisberger.
With the offense unable games away, the Broncos, even with backup quarterback Jeff Driskel in the game, had a chance to win in the fourth quarter. One of the matchups that proved to be really good for the Broncos was Noah Fant against Devin Bush.
The Steelers kept having Bush in situations where he was singled up in coverage against Fant and he was able to outrun Bush and create openings to make plays. With the pressure packages the Steelers were using, they didn't have the ability to invest more resources to stop Fant.
Going forward, it will be worth watching to see if the Steelers continue to have Bush singled up against tight ends and how he performs in those matchups. Fant and Bush are only in their second seasons in the league. Fant was impressive and Bush clearly possesses great physical traits and the Steelers have the utmost faith in his ability and continuing development.
The Steelers are 2-0, so as much as they have areas to improve, they are operating from a position of strength. Still, it's at least slightly surprising that they aren't better on offense considering the amount of weaponry at their disposal, particularly at wide receiver and tight end as well as the continuity on the roster and the coaching staff.
In aggregate, Roethlisberger's numbers look good and the threat to generate instant offense continues to exist, but watching him play, it's not nearly as good as it has been in years past.
Unless Roethlisberger steps up his play, the defense is going to continue to be put in difficult situations, asked to save them. That doesn't make them any less of a threat to make the playoffs, but it certainly caps their how far they can go in the postseason.
