Najee Harris has each proper to be pissed off. The Pittsburgh Steelers offense has been placing Band-Aids over its leaks all season simply making an attempt to get to the subsequent day. It’s a technique that has largely labored. They’ve scored 25 or extra factors solely as soon as this season, but nonetheless stay within the thick of the playoff hunt at 6-4.
The Steelers’ DVOA numbers put in print what the tape clearly exhibits: They’re a barely above-average soccer group. Their protection is nice, however their offense is mediocre. The issue the Steelers have with their unspectacular offense is that the worst half is the construction itself.
Harris stated as a lot when speaking to the media after Pittsburgh’s Week 11 loss to the Cleveland Browns and their rookie fifth-round quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Harris was visibly pissed off and made positive to specific it. He even put some blame on the offensive teaching employees. He was requested if he felt that the opposing groups knew what’s approaching offense, and took a protracted pause earlier than lastly answering.
“Yeah, in some situations to be honest with you,” Harris stated.
That was a part of a number of venting he did in the course of the media scrum. He additionally stated that whereas the Steelers have an excellent document, they won’t be able to proceed profitable the way in which that they’re taking part in.
Harris mainly stated the loud half out loud, a few weeks after George Pickens was caught on the sidelines in Week 9 expressing displeasure. Later that week, Pickens scrubbed all of his Steelers content material from his social media and posted “free me.” He would later deny that exercise had something to do with him being upset. Nevertheless, Steelers gamers and coaches did tell the media that he has been vocal about his issues relating to his function within the offense.
Mike Tomlin has experience in holding an sad group collectively and getting the most effective out of them. Nevertheless, getting the most effective out of less-than-ideal circumstances will solely take a group thus far. Going into this season, Kenny Pickett was alleged to take a step ahead. Utilizing 20/20 hindsight, nobody ought to have believed that was attainable.
In Matt Canada’s third season as offensive coordinator, the offense is receiving the identical criticism it did when Harris ran right into a brick wall 307 occasions as a rookie in 2021. Canada’s offense is just too fundamental and predictable. Followers, gasbags and football nerds all agree on this.
The Steelers have seven video games remaining on their schedule and now their gamers are, one after the other, coming to a boiling level. Harris is dead-on when he says that the way in which the Steelers are scraping by in victories shouldn’t be the way in which to win within the NFL.
Sadly for him and his teammates, that’s the solely method that they may be capable of win this season. The Steelers don’t make modifications rapidly, and positively not in season. The Athletic’s Dianna Russini has already reported that the group has no plans to half methods with Canada in the course of the season. That was in mid-October in the course of the Steelers’ bye week. She included in her report that he had the assist of Tomlin and the gamers.
Effectively, that kumbaya seems to be carrying skinny. There was first an outburst from Pickens after which a measured, but nonetheless pointed, criticism from Harris.
These tense moments are when Tomlin does a few of his greatest work. He has confirmed he can hold the ship from sinking and float it to the shore of a 9-8 season. Nevertheless, until the Steelers do one thing completely in opposition to the character of their franchise by making an in-season change at offensive coordinator, gamers can be sitting on that shore sad that the ship didn’t get them the place they in the end wished to go.
