Could the Steelers pass their way into an early exit from the NFL playoffs?

There were signs the Steelers could go sideways at some point, even when they were stacking 11 wins in a row to start the season.

The biggest has been the offensive inconsistency. They’ve hitched their wagon to this Ben Roethlisberger quick passing game, throwing the football on almost 70% of their plays in the past eight games. With Chase Claypool and Juju Smith-Schuster, James Washington and Diontae Johnson, they have at least four guys who can win outside. But as defenses have started to adjust, they’ve struggled, their point totals falling from 36 to 27 to 19 to 17 and to 15 in a loss Sunday night at Buffalo.

I would think to be a team that consistently wins – and wins in the playoffs – they would want to establish that run game a little more and they’re not even trying. When they run it, they’re just trying to find a play to run before the next pass play. It’s an afterthought.

Unless it’s the Chiefs or one of these explosive one-off offenses that just roll through the entire league and win a Super Bowl, the formula for success has always been a tough defense; a good run game, especially down in the red zone; and then a good quarterback who understands where to go with the football, who can maybe make some plays outside of the Xs and Os and do some special things.

It has rarely been a team that’s going to throw it 60% of the time or more and relies on that to get them through the tough times.

That’s where the Steelers should be concerned. They have a winning defense, and they’re 11-2 so they’re doing something right. But as teams come up with answers for them and the weather changes and gets like it was the other night when they were playing the Bills with the rain coming down, that offense gets hard to repeat.

I don’t think Roethlisberger is precise enough to consistently do what they’re asking him to do, either. They’re banking on having success with something he has never really been that good at. He has been good at the off-schedule plays his whole career. Think about Roethlisberger in his prime – a pass rusher could get to him and he’d just toss the guy off his back and make a throw or he’d move around and extend a play. Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown would just find ways to make a magical play happen.

Is Big Ben at his best in this offense?

With what they’re trying to do now, with basically no run game at all, I think they lose some of what makes Roethlisberger special and makes him really good.

They’re just going with a quick passing game and taking a couple of shots down the field when they’re there. I don’t think they’re going to be as successful as they hope at the end of this thing, especially against good teams.

Watching their film and how they play, I’d think Buffalo or Baltimore, Indianapolis, Cleveland, the Raiders if they can sneak in, Tennessee, they would all love to play the Steelers in the playoffs. The Ravens would feel good about it. The Titans lost by three to them back in October. The Browns will get another crack at them to end the regular season.

It’s hard to imagine a room full of quality NFL coaches who know the weather is going to change, who know it’s going to be harder to catch the ball, harder to throw the ball, and they all go, “This is what we’re going to do.” That’s kind of a head-scratcher. You have to have the ability to hand the ball off. You have to have a run game. Let it get down into the 20s and maybe have some rain or snow in Pittsburgh or in Kansas City and not be able to run the ball at all, what are they going to do?

Are Steelers setting themselves up for early playoff exit?

When they had Le’Veon Bell and he would run, he had incredible patience and the offensive linemen would stay on their blocks and they would just road grade people. Roethlisberger would make his plays on third down or in the red zone to keep drives going or to score points.

I know the offensive line loved that – I’ve never been around anyone who wants to pass-set 50 times a game.

They get cranked up for a playoff game, a home playoff game, and then you’re going to just pass-set and let all these rushers try out all their moves on you? They want to get their hands on somebody and just punish some guys, move bodies and physically start to feel the other team giving up.

That’s what they want, and right now the Steelers are very far from that.

Packers could be hidden fantasy gem

The Packers defense could be a sneaky play this week against Carolina. They’re at home, and haven’t allowed more than 25 points in a game at Lambeau this season. On top of that, Green Bay is averaging close to four sacks a game at home and five of its eight interceptions have come at home. The Packers also figure to score, putting some pressure on Carolina, which has lost seven of its past eight games and is expected to be another week away from getting Christian McCaffrey back.

This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 12:41 PM.