The Steelers Offense is Still an Issue

Few things are more pleasant to watch on a Sunday than Aaron Rodgers throwing the football. And in Week 14 against the Ravens, he made several unbelievable throws on iso routes to the outside that ended up being the difference in the game.

There’s not much analysis to dive into on these throws. When Rodgers saw 1-on-1’s that he liked, he pulled the trigger:

That was the first play of the game and set the tone for the afternoon.

The Steelers hadn’t completed one pass of 20 air yards or more in 6 weeks entering their game against Baltimore. On Sunday, they completed 4. Each of those completions happened on different drives, and each of those drives resulted in points. In fact, the Steelers scored 20 points across those 4 drives.

On this 3rd-and-3 in the 2nd quarter, you can see that the deep safety was even cheating a bit to D.K. Metcalf’s side. Rodgers still liked the 1-on-1 matchup and connected:

Good lord.

Here’s one more on a 3rd-and-5 in the 3rd quarter that went for 31 yards:

Pittsburgh’s fourth play of 20 air yards or more came on the first play of the second half, with Rodgers using his mobility to buy time and find a receiver downfield:

He made a few other key plays with his legs throughout the afternoon:

When Rodgers has mobility at his disposal like he did on Sunday, it means his legs are feeling good. And going back to last year, when his legs feel good, he seems to be able to put the ball where he wants to like he did in his prime. He’s more willing to attack downfield as a result.

That said, the Steelers offense isn’t out of the woods quite yet. The Ravens played into their hands by giving Rodgers 1-on-1 opportunities all afternoon. It certainly didn’t hurt that they had no pass rush either.

But overall, the passing game is still very limited. It’s really just iso routes on the outside (when available), screens, smoke, check downs, and quick throws that don’t threaten the defense. They don’t attack in the middle of the field at the intermediate-to-deep levels at all.

There are several reasons for this. But I think the biggest reason is that Aaron Rodgers, at his age and at this stage in his career, is not willing to sit in the pocket long enough to let routes develop and be able to attack downfield.