Steelers Pro Bowl
Steelers Pro Bowl
The Steelers haven’t shown much of their offense thus far, but HC Mike McCarthy is excited about their versatility. He highlighted two players he believes figure into that equation in particular. One we know figures to play quite a lot, and that is TE Pat Freiermuth. The other will have to earn a role but has a bright future: rookie WR Germie Bernard.
“Pat, I just really love his versatility”, McCarthy said Thursday of his top pass-catching tight end, via the Steelers’ website. “Pat gives us tremendous flexibility to play one-back, two-back schemes. He can play the Y, he can play the F. He can then can really get into the backfield things. He can play displaced, number one, if he wanted to. So, just really love his flexibility”.
While he is new to McCarthy, Freiermuth is of course far from new to the Steelers’ offense. In fact, he is the longest-tenured member of the group, going into Year 6. He is the only one who can claim to have played with Ben Roethlisberger, having been drafted ahead the latter’s final season. But they criminally underutilized him last year under Arthur Smith as OC, and McCarthy hopes to fix that.
After all, he sees Freiermuth as a core piece of the versatility he hopes to showcase in the Steelers’ offense. And he hopes that Germie Bernard can be another. While McCarthy talked about his special teams role, he added, “He gives us the flexibility we’re looking for, as far as, he can play both inside and outside”.
The Steelers have DK Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr. as their starting outside receivers. Roman Wilson and Bernard will compete for the opportunity to absorb the rest of the snaps, or at least most of them. Many believe, however, that early on the unit will lean on its veteran tight ends.
That is at least until Bernard gets up to speed, and Metcalf himself is excited about the rookie’s future. “He’s just very open to learning, asking us questions out there on the field”, he said of the second-round pick. “A great route runner, naturally. Good hands. But I just like how he’s willing to learn from us, the older guys, the DBs. He’s just always out there competing”.
Flexibility has been central to what Mike McCarthy has preached about his vision for the Steelers’ offense this year. But I think that will show more in personnel groupings than in how individual players are used. Because they have pass-catching tight ends and big-bodied wide receivers who can block, it gives them a range of options.
And Freiermuth and Bernard are certainly two of the players upon which much of that rests. Freiermuth is the first to admit that he doesn’t exactly love to block, but the Steelers putting him on the field doesn’t automatically signal to the defense that it’s a pass. Add Washington and rookie FB Riley Nowakowski to the mix, and there are a variety of looks the Steelers can deploy.