Steelers Get Normal, and With It, the Missing Links to the Offense
PITTSBURGH -- What does a full week of practice do for the Pittsburgh Steelers? Well, a lot.
The Steelers offense has hit a point of major concern. The backfield hasn't hit the century mark in eight weeks. Diontae Johnson leads the NFL with 12 drops, followed by 37 drops between all of Ben Roethlisberger's receivers. And while everything is falling apart, offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner has reverted to his short-passing ways.
As the Steelers fall to 11-2 and panic sets in throughout the fanbase, they're finally getting back to normal. This isn't a team that thinks of hypotheticals, so believing they could've one against Washington or Buffalo under a regular schedule is pointless.
They lost, and now it's time to make adjustments.
"Whatever you missed in that little three-week time of walk-through, playing not playing, games being moved, I think back to just repetition of throwing and catching for our guys," Fichtner said about the offense's struggles. "That's not an excuse."
It is, though.
The Steelers offense hasn't struggled just recently but throughout the season. They haven't had a running game in as long as any of us can remember, and dropping the football has been so drastic that Johnson got benched for two series in Buffalo.
A lot of this changes in Week 15. The Steelers are working under a "normal" schedule, practicing from Wednesday through Saturday before traveling to Cincinnati on Sunday and playing the Bengals on Monday night.
What comes with a normal week of preparation is the variety of offensive input that hasn't been available in three weeks. As the Steelers played three games in 12 days, they moved away from things like "drawing plays in the dirt" and utilizing quarterbacks coach Matt Canada and his college flair in the running game.
After joking that calling plays in the dirt is more difficult with the ground being frozen, Roethlisberger admitted his in-the-moment play-calling has disappeared.
"Every game, there will be a set group of no huddles where we are moving guys around and putting them in different spots that they are not used to," Roethlisberger explained. "Certain games require more. The last game, we didn't do much. The game before we didn't do a whole lot, kind of intentionally, to kind of show some different looks at people."
Canada's input has also vanished, and with it has the end-arounds and most of the success running the football.
"He's a guy that's new to the whole motion, the whole energy of practice, everything," JuJu Smith-Schuster said about Canada. "Being able to move defenses around, get them to move their feet. And with all the reads, I think it's huge. I think it's helped us a lot."
This week is different. The Steelers had Wednesday's practice cut short due to weather but are on track to get as much work in as possible before traveling for Week 15.
With that will come more plays in the dirt, more of Canada's input, and hopefully, more success on offense.
"I'm kind of excited about being on a real week schedule because there is maybe some flow to be able to do that," Fichtner said. "The rush to some of these past weeks, you better committed to do the things you feel most comfortable to do because you really didn't get practice reps versus maybe the looks you were anticipating for that week. We can do everything a little bit better. Me, him, our staff, our players. Everyone can do something better and we know how to do it right. We've done it right. If you call it a lull, maybe it was and maybe it is at this point. But, shoot, we can get out of that, too."
Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers.
