Steelers OFC Sucks...Why?

[ATL96Steeler]

PIT ranks 19th in scoring OFC, and slightly better (17th) in yds.

Well, 19th is I guess lower middle of the pack so it doesn't really suck, but for a team many felt had AFCCG potential...it does suck.

I'm not a big believer in Haley as an effective OFC designer and even less so as play caller...but I've gone back and looked at some game tape from LY and especially the last game and I've come away with a few things.

1...LY Ben was spreading the ball around more it seemed, quicker hitting passes. This year, Ben is back to pumping and double pumping. IDK if 19 targets was in response to him bitching and throwing a tantrum last week but 19 to AB is too many. Even worse...37 of Ben's 55 passes went to 3 players, (AB-19, Bryant 10, Bell 8)...granted, we don't want Ben throwing 55 times a week, but they gotta get more people involved. JJ should be getting more than 3-5 targets a game.

I'd give Rogers a helmet in lieu of Hunter. Grimble should be getting some RZ snaps and as several of of us have said...get Connor more snaps...Bell getting 3 consecutive touches in some series...makes no sense...bring in a fresh back for a series in both halves!!

2...Need Gilbert back at RT or maybe it's time to give Hawkins some snaps...Hubbard is okay vs the avg guys, but struggles against top shelf players and Justin Huston is about as top shelf as you can get.

3...Be creative...I'd love to see a RZ grouping, with McDonald and Grimble at TE, and Juju in bunch formation and AB on the opposite side of the formation and Bell in the backfield...should be able to run or pass from that, even a inside screen game with Juju or Bell.

AB and Bell are great players but they don't have to touch the ball on every play.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Hate to keep beating the dead horse here, but I can't help myself.

Todd Haley has to go.

His inept playcalling & gameplanning is far too vanilla. He is incredibly bad at making gametime adjustments. Rarely does he ever deviate from anything. You hear it in every presser from the coaches to the players, they always say something along the lines of: "We had a plan to do this". And sure enough, win or loss they drive that nail clear through to China. A quote from JJ yesterday was pretty damning to this fact... He said the Jags had a good gameplan for their crossing routes, sitting in flats/zones. And when you look at where 2-3 out of the 5 INT's were in the EXACT SAME SPOT ON THE FIELD.... WTF? The most damning stats to this offense are 3rd down & RZ efficiency. And I don't ever recall those being relatively good since Haley entered the building. He probably has 5-10 plays that he runs over & over again in those situations making it easy for defenses to catch on.

With this many talented weapons on this offense they should be able to impose their will on any defense. Haley has to figure out a way to be less predictable. Any team that does extensive film review on this offense has a paint-by-numbers blueprint on how to stop it because Haley doesn't know how to make disguise or be creative with his schemes.

 

[Ewa PGH Fan]

It's not just any one thing it's a combo of things. The bigger question is can they turn it around whether Haley is fired or not? We've seen this before, it has all the hall marks of an average team. What gripes us all, this team was predicted to be well-above average and has fallen well short of expectations. We can gripe about the coaches all we want but unless the players figure it out and turn it around this will be a long season. In the words of the late great Chuck Noll, "If I have to motivate you, you don't belong here. My job is not to motivate you."

The players need to figure out why they're so out of sync with each other and fix it pronto.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

If nothing else we will see what kind of leader Tomlin really is.

The offense should be purring like a Porsche with all the pieces they have in the building. Arguably the #1 RB & #1 WR in the league, top 5 O-line in the league being coached by the best in the business (and HOFer & former HC), top 10-15 QB (on a good day), a WR coach thought to be excellent, and an OC with 7 years of experience for the job that used to be a HC (meaning he should have the experience to handle everything the job has to offer) and also was a WR coach for 10 years....

Even though its currently the strength of the team, the defense could still be better. It is laden with first round talent, has a DC that was "groomed" for the position for many years & has extensive experience on that side of the ball both as a player & coach, a should-be HOFer defensive backs coach, and a D-line coach who is also considered one of the best.

With the amount of experience & talent they have on this team there's no reason why it should be struggling the way it is. And to me that points directly back to Tomlin. We will see what kind of head coach Tomlin is at this time. He needs to fire who needs firing, and bench who needs benching. Otherwise what will change? He has a clean history of rebounding the team & making solid runs to the postseason, but here we are every year needing this "sky is falling" dilemma in order to right the ship. Its pathetic.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Hate to keep beating the dead horse here, but I can't help myself.

Todd Haley has to go.

His inept playcalling & gameplanning is far too vanilla. He is incredibly bad at making gametime adjustments. Rarely does he ever deviate from anything. You hear it in every presser from the coaches to the players, they always say something along the lines of: "We had a plan to do this". And sure enough, win or loss they drive that nail clear through to China. A quote from JJ yesterday was pretty damning to this fact... He said the Jags had a good gameplan for their crossing routes, sitting in flats/zones. And when you look at where 2-3 out of the 5 INT's were in the EXACT SAME SPOT ON THE FIELD.... WTF? The most damning stats to this offense are 3rd down & RZ efficiency. And I don't ever recall those being relatively good since Haley entered the building. He probably has 5-10 plays that he runs over & over again in those situations making it easy for defenses to catch on.

With this many talented weapons on this offense they should be able to impose their will on any defense. Haley has to figure out a way to be less predictable. Any team that does extensive film review on this offense has a paint-by-numbers blueprint on how to stop it because Haley doesn't know how to make disguise or be creative with his schemes.

The elephant in the room.

That's the big concern I have when it comes to getting over the hump...any good DC with a playoff caliber roster and week to prepare will make life difficult for a Haley OFC to be successful.

But hell, they look more inept now than ever...after last week, I'm concerned about them competing week in week out....I know one huge benefit will be getting his RT back and hopefully AVill tightens up his game.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

It's not just any one thing it's a combo of things. The bigger question is can they turn it around whether Haley is fired or not? We've seen this before, it has all the hall marks of an average team. What gripes us all, this team was predicted to be well-above average and has fallen well short of expectations. We can gripe about the coaches all we want but unless the players figure it out and turn it around this will be a long season. In the words of the late great Chuck Noll, "If I have to motivate you, you don't belong here. My job is not to motivate you."

The players need to figure out why they're so out of sync with each other and fix it pronto.

At the end of the day, the players have to execute better. Eliminating the mistakes they have control over, such as pre-snap penalties.

That said, the Steelers are not dropping a lot of passes or putting the ball on the ground a lot...those plays have been well defended for the most part. the game plans need freshening. If the teams know what your tendencies are in certain down and distance situations, they get a half a step headstart...the DEF stands a much better chance of challenging the play.

In the Rooney mode of operation, we know Haley is not going anywhere...not this season for sure.

Just spitballing to see what others would like to them do on OFC to breal out of this funk.

 

[Ewa PGH Fan]

They need to spread the ball around more and attack all areas of the field. It was mentioned on here that they trended toward a certain area of the field and Jacksonville was sitting in that area waiting for the ball. Some trick plays might help to get the defense off balance. Course, thye would need to execute them first.

Which reminds me of the often played quote form TB's first coach who said when asked about the execution of his offense that he was in favor of it.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

They need to spread the ball around more and attack all areas of the field. It was mentioned on here that they trended toward a certain area of the field and Jacksonville was sitting in that area waiting for the ball. Some trick plays might help to get the defense off balance. Course, thye would need to execute them first.

Which reminds me of the often played quote form TB's first coach who said when asked about the execution of his offense that he was in favor of it.

I was grinding my teeth on 3 consecutive touches by Bell...I don't care how good they are, or how well conditioned they are, common sense should tell you if a player got 2 previous touches and gained some yards...he's probably not going to be as explosive on a 3rd consecutive play. Why not go to a fresher player?

You're right...spreading the ball around, using more of your assets, gives an OC a whole more to try to stop.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

They need to spread the ball around more and attack all areas of the field. It was mentioned on here that they trended toward a certain area of the field and Jacksonville was sitting in that area waiting for the ball. Some trick plays might help to get the defense off balance. Course, thye would need to execute them first.

Which reminds me of the often played quote form TB's first coach who said when asked about the execution of his offense that he was in favor of it.

Watch: Haley's Scheme Doesn't Do Roethlisberger Any Favors In Loss To Jags - Steelers Depot

Interesting take here on Haley's OFC by Alex Kora of Steeler Depot...he does this every week, but I took the time to watch it since we were breaking down the OFC. One thing he pointed out that I think is true...when you watch the Steelers run routes, each routes is kind independent of each other, meaning if the WR gets open it's because he "won" his matchup. Other OCs design routes that work off each other...rub routes, and combination routes are common in the NFL but PIT doesn't do much of that.

Like the 1st pick Ben threw...Alex does a great job of pointing out the flaws with the design of the play. Something as subtle as motioning AB away from the play was huge...if AB is motioning to the play side...the CB (Jalen Ramsey) has to respect that and cover him. If so, McDonald is probably going against a LB in the seam instead of their CB1.

Watching the tape over again, there were a few plays where I thought Ben could have made a better decision with the ball. The OL/RB has to do a better job on stunts or delayed blitzes up the middle.

 

[Psych-Ward]

PIT ranks 19th in scoring OFC, and slightly better (17th) in yds.

Well, 19th is I guess lower middle of the pack so it doesn't really suck, but for a team many felt had AFCCG potential...it does suck.

I'm not a big believer in Haley as an effective OFC designer and even less so as play caller...but I've gone back and looked at some game tape from LY and especially the last game and I've come away with a few things.

1...LY Ben was spreading the ball around more it seemed, quicker hitting passes. This year, Ben is back to pumping and double pumping. IDK if 19 targets was in response to him bitching and throwing a tantrum last week but 19 to AB is too many. Even worse...37 of Ben's 55 passes went to 3 players, (AB-19, Bryant 10, Bell 8)...granted, we don't want Ben throwing 55 times a week, but they gotta get more people involved. JJ should be getting more than 3-5 targets a game.

I'd give Rogers a helmet in lieu of Hunter. Grimble should be getting some RZ snaps and as several of of us have said...get Connor more snaps...Bell getting 3 consecutive touches in some series...makes no sense...bring in a fresh back for a series in both halves!!

2...Need Gilbert back at RT or maybe it's time to give Hawkins some snaps...Hubbard is okay vs the avg guys, but struggles against top shelf players and Justin Huston is about as top shelf as you can get.

3...Be creative...I'd love to see a RZ grouping, with McDonald and Grimble at TE, and Juju in bunch formation and AB on the opposite side of the formation and Bell in the backfield...should be able to run or pass from that, even a inside screen game with Juju or Bell.

AB and Bell are great players but they don't have to touch the ball on every play.

How f-ed up is it the majority of the passes are to the 3 drama queens???
Last year Ben spread the ball around a Hell of a lot more.....makes you wonder if he is catching Shit to get the ball to these 3 bitches. Maybe this is where the problem lies. I mean if defenses only have to prep for 3 guys and shitty play calls, would explain the lack luster performance of this dud of an offense.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

How f-ed up is it the majority of the passes are to the 3 drama queens???
Last year Ben spread the ball around a Hell of a lot more.....makes you wonder if he is catching Shit to get the ball to these 3 bitches. Maybe this is where the problem lies. I mean if defenses only have to prep for 3 guys and shitty play calls, would explain the lack luster performance of this dud of an offense.

He did...one thing was brought him to me the other day at the barbershop...yeah, there is still barbershop sports talk...lol

Tomlin's focus on camp/preseason was get the vets through it w/o injury. They rarely played as a unit on OFC...so his theory is the OFC will improve as Ben gets to know McDonald and Juju more, what they can and cannot do, etc. Also the coaches will gain more confidence in Connor as the season goes along, hopefully he gets more touches.

Imo that doesn't explain Nix being purely a blocker, last year he got a few touches...something on tape for DCs to plan think about...so far this season, they are riding the big horses pretty hard. At some point I feel McDonald and Juju will be much bigger pcs.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

If coordinators got paid hourly based off of performance... Haley would be getting paid close to minimum wage.

@ATL96Steeler

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[ATL96Steeler]

FWIW...they were 2 for 2 last week iirc.

It's not going to get much better imo until Haley is either fired, or he finally realizes that if he used more of his players his OFC would be more difficult to defend.

 

[Superbelt]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]