The Pittsburgh Steelers have a bottom-10 passing offense at the moment, managing just 195 yards per game. That’s rapidly trending in the wrong direction with an average of just 167.5 over the last two games. Dan Orlovsky says this may become the new normal for the Steelers now that defenses have figured them out.
“The Chargers came out and said, ‘Hey, on third down, we’re gonna double-team DK Metcalf and double-team Pat Freiermuth and you got no one else to throw the football to,'” Orlovsky said Thursday via ESPN’s Get Up. “And that’s their reality. And unless somebody steps forward outside of those two players in their pass game, the defenses that are smart and well-coached are gonna sit there and say, ‘We’re gonna dare somebody else to beat us.’ And I don’t think the Steelers have that person.”
The obvious answer is featuring Jaylen Warren much more than they are. He is arguably the Steelers’ best player on either side of the ball right now, yet he has a high of just 18 carries in Week 3 against the New England Patriots. He can be a weapon both on the ground and through the air as one of the elite third-down players in the league.
Calvin Austin III is coming off the worst game of his career with two costly drops, but he’s been solid when called on for the most part this season. And there’s still hope that Roman Wilson emerges. The Steelers keep going to him in garbage time with great success, so why not try that earlier in the game? He’s at least gotten more snaps over the last five games than he was earlier in the season.
Aaron Rodgers even admitted on Wednesday that other guys have to get open, and that didn’t happen last Sunday against the Chargers.
Darnell Washington is a player on the rise, but he’s more of a 50-50 ball guy than somebody who will reliably get open on third down. Sometimes a 50-50 chance isn’t reliable enough on a crucial third down.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling is likely to start getting a helmet on game day sooner rather than later, but don’t expect some career reemergence from him just because he’s playing with Rodgers again. He might catch the occasional deep ball, but he hasn’t been a reliable chain mover over the years.
All of this is hampering WR1 DK Metcalf because teams can sell out to stop him. With no passing game and a one-dimensional attack, nothing works. There’s a reason why the Steelers were reportedly in the mix for a significant and splashy trade at the deadline.
Much like Russell Wilson’s “layups and three pointers” from a year ago that the entire league figured out down the stretch, the Steelers’ offense is at risk of being solved. And there’s no easy way to fix that with eight games to go.
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