The Pittsburgh Steelers had been clicking offensively over the past couple of weeks. They found some consistency in their win over Minnesota and had good performances against Cleveland and Cincinnati in their next two games. They got off to a great start against Green Bay on Sunday night but simply couldn’t sustain that rhythm.
The offense wasn’t the reason the Steelers lost, but they weren’t able to keep that momentum going. Chris Canty thinks the Steelers need more offensive “firepower” and that Jaylen Warren might not be enough at running back.
“Their offense doesn’t have enough firepower to overcome the inconsistencies that you see on the other side of the ball,” Canty said Monday on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike. “They need more juice on the edges of that offense. Because it can’t be the DK Metcalf show the entire time. And here’s the thing. I have all respect for Jaylen Warren at running back, but let’s be honest. He’s a complementary piece; he’s not a bell cow. He’s not a guy that’s gonna dictate front and coverage. The ground attack for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they just need more on offense.”
The Steelers got off to a great start offensively against the Packers. They jumped out to a 16-7 lead and went into the locker room at halftime full of confidence. However, the second half was drastically different as the Steelers were outscored 28-9. In that first half, though, the Steelers were doing some things well offensively. The line played at a high level, giving Jaylen Warren plenty of room to run.
There was a massive momentum shift late in the third quarter and into the beginning of the fourth quarter. During that time, the line started to struggle, and the Packers’ defensive front really started to eat. Led by Micah Parsons and Rashan Gary, the Packers generated much more pressure on passing downs and stifled the Steelers on rushing downs.
Warren didn’t have a bad day, though. He got the lion’s share of carries, with 13 compared to just five for Kenneth Gainwell. Warren turned those into 62 rushing yards, which comes to a solid 4.8 per carry.
Offense isn’t the Steelers’ biggest problem. And Jaylen Warren certainly isn’t. But that unit is really missing one player who can just take over a game. Warren and Gainwell were each fine running the ball, but they can only do so much behind a line that started to struggle in the second half. Nine different receivers caught a pass, but none had more than five receptions. So the Steelers don’t really have a go-to player who can consistently beat defenses, especially when the rest of the offense falls flat.
That’s fine in games where the defense plays even just average. But when the defense gets dominated like it has for two weeks now, the Steelers just aren’t able to match up with their offense. That said, it’s not Jaylen Warren’s fault. The Steelers have plenty of issues outside of him, and even in such a frustrating game he was still able to put up efficient numbers.
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