Film Room: Mason Rudolph and the passing game
While the Steelers celebrated their first victory last week against Cincinnati, the criticism of the passing game did not go away. Mike Tomlin and Randy Fichtner have been under much criticism for almost the entirety of the season so far for their conservative approach to games.
There has also been speculation that Mason Rudolph has had chances to air it out down the field, but simply hasn't let very many fly downfield. Randy Fichtner specifically mentioned this publicly last Friday, referencing opportunities to throw downfield against San Francisco.
The Steelers did rebound last week with a 24-point victory to finally get a notch in the win column, but the run game along with the short passing game is what drove the offense down the field. We still have yet to see Rudolph air it out consistently.
To Rudolph's credit, two of his six touchdown passes have been credited as "deep" throws (15 yards or more in the air), both of which were thrown to rookie Diontae Johnson.
We wanted to put the offense under the microscope and see what exactly the offense tried to do in the passing game against Cincinnati. Did the coaching staff keep Rudolph at bay? Or did Rudolph decide to play it safe and check down more often rather than risk a throw downfield?
Play 1
This play here is what we saw a lot of last Monday night. Rudolph checked down the ball a lot, but for good reason. If the defense continuously drops back in coverage and gives the underneath routes room, it's smart to exploit it.
In this play, Cincinnati drops eight players in coverage while the Steelers send three receivers on intermediate or deep routes. The Bengals play very deep in their coverage while Conner slips out of pass protection for a check down.
With Cincinnati so far back in coverage, Rudolph makes the right read and checks it down. Forcing a pass to one of three receivers downfield with eight in coverage is irresponsible. Conner even has enough time to catch the pass and turn upfield, gaining eight yards.
Plays like this move the chains and keep drives going. The Steelers did a lot of this against Cincinnati because they gave it to them a lot. Why not take advantage of it? More time of possession means less time for the defense to be on the field. That had been a major issue in the first three games of the season.
From the design of the play, it's clear the Steelers wanted to have options down the field, but nothing opened up. This was a smart play by Rudolph to check down.
Play 2
I love this play. A lot. The Steelers had struggled with their run game in the first three games. They found different ways to manufacture it in this game. The most noticeable way was the deployment of the wildcat. The Steelers also ran several jet sweeps that were technically passes.
This play is essentially a run. The offensive line blocks like it's a run and with Rudolph turning at the snap of the ball, the linebackers initially read run, or at least play-action. The start of the play gets the defense moving one direction while Rudolph and Samuels go the other. The quick little pass may as well have been a handoff, but a play like this is another way to manufacture the run game. It's a brilliant design.
Another little anecdote I want to point out here is the pre-snap motion. If you read our James Conner film study, you'll remember I mentioned there have been multiple times where the defense would be in man coverage. The offense would move a tight end in motion, bringing another defender to the side of the field they would eventually run the play toward. Many times that extra defender would be left unblocked, having a great chance to make a play.
Here, the Steelers see man coverage and use motion to bring a defender away from the side of the field the play is going toward. This was refreshing to see and opened up even more space for this play to have a chance to be successful, which it was.
Play 3
The Steelers did run plenty of plays that sent receivers down the field in this game. As mentioned before, with the type of coverage Cincinnati played most of the game, checking down was a viable option quite often.
Rudolph checks down again here, but misses a streaking JuJu Smith-Schuster going deep across the field. JuJu is lined up in the slot on the right side of the formation. He runs a clean route and finds a huge seam in between the coverage. Rudolph has a decent amount of time, but doesn't ever see JuJu. When Rudolph doesn't see anything develop, he checks down to Jaylen Samuels.
Rudolph is still getting comfortable with the offense and his development week by week. This happened only a few times in this game, but as he progresses, he needs to be able to go through his reads quicker and trust his receivers to get open. It comes with time, and Rudolph has the tools to be able to do it. It's a matter of when he'll be able to out it together more often.
Final Conclusion
It does look like the offensive scheme by Fichtner tried to stretch the field a bit more this past week. So much of the focus in this game was on manufacturing the run game and getting the ball in James Conner and Jaylen Samuels' hands.
A lot of what we saw against the Bengals was simply the defensive coverage played by Cincinnati. Rudolph took the correct check down considerably more times than not. He did miss a couple opportunities down the field, but he did hit on a big one to Diontae Johnson in the third quarter.
I would expect Rudolph to get more comfortable week after week and eventually begin to air it out similar to how he did in college.
Rudolph spoke with the media on Thursday and talked about how he's building trust to expand the playbook. He also mentioned how refreshing it was to be criticized for throwing short instead of throwing deep.
"I was criticized often for doing that too much in college," Rudolph laughed.
The game against Cincinnati was a difficult barometer to see just how much Pittsburgh wanted to go deep in this game. Baltimore will be a much more difficult challenge this week.
Rudolph and Fichtner are not shy about discussing the issues with stretching the field, which gives me the indication that it may be coming sooner rather than later. The tape says they might be. We'll have to see if and when Rudolph finally lets more deep passes fly.
