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Whereas the Steelers‘ first lack of 2020 was a workforce effort, Pittsburgh’s offense has taken the brunt of the criticism within the days following Monday’s loss to the Washington Soccer Workforce. Whereas the Steelers rushed for simply 21 yards, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was the sufferer of a number of dropped passes, because the Steelers now lead the league with 31 drops. Pittsburgh’s play calls have additionally come beneath scrutiny after Roethlisberger, dealing with a fourth-and-one with the sport on the road, threw a deep back-shoulder move to rookie operating again Anthony McFarland. The move fell incomplete and, a number of performs later, Washington scored what turned out to be the game-winning factors.
JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Steelers’ No. 1 receiver, supplied a considerably defiant reply when requested on Thursday if the offense ought to contemplate making adjustments to the sport plan.
“We’re 11-1,” Smith-Schuster stated, via ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. “What we now have within the kitchen that is cooking is actually good.”
Smith-Schuster’s evaluation of the state of affairs is essentially correct. Whereas their offense has develop into considerably predictable in current weeks (what occurred to Chase Claypool’s jet sweeps?), the Steelers’ offense was top-five within the league in scoring throughout the season’s first 10 video games. And whereas defenses have began taking part in the Steelers’ offense in a different way over the previous two weeks (Washington, after watching how Baltimore performed the Steelers per week earlier, used largely man protection whereas transferring their safeties as much as lower down on Pittsburgh’s intermediate passes), the Steelers are most certainly 12-0 heading into Sunday’s recreation with Buffalo if they’d managed to hold on to extra of Roethlisberger’s catchable passes towards the Soccer Workforce.
Talking of the drops, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin supplied a resolution to the issue if it continues to persist.
“They’ll catch the ball,” Tomlin stated, “or they will get changed by somebody who will catch it.”
Smith-Schuster, Pittsburgh’s main receiver because the begin of the 2017 season, believes that the rise in drops is because of “individuals making an attempt to make a play earlier than it occurs,” including that extra focus and focus on making the catch earlier than turning upfield ought to eradicate the issue. So far as Tomlin’s current problem, Smith-Schuster is utilizing it as motivation.
“Coach T has at all times been clear. If you cannot do your job, we’ll get somebody to do it,” Smith-Schuster said, through Steelers.com’s Teresa Varley. “That’s one thing he has at all times stated. He has confirmed that. He has fired gamers earlier than and introduced in new guys. That’s not one thing new. He’s undoubtedly proper about that. Some individuals take it in a different way. For us as a workforce we take it very private and it is motivation to get higher and catch the balls.”
One factor Smith-Schuster stated he would welcome is extra probabilities to make performs downfield. A receiver with two 97-yard touchdowns on his profession stat line, Smith-Schuster is averaging a career-low 8.2 yards per catch this season. Whereas his 73 catches are eight greater than Pittsburgh’s subsequent main receiver (second-year wideout Diontae Johnson), Claypool (13.8) and James Washington (13.7) lead the Steelers in yards per catch.
“Ideally, I’ve at all times felt like I can run down subject and catch these deep passes,” Smith-Schuster stated. “In comparison with final 12 months or two years in the past, the route tree I used to be operating was so much totally different. This 12 months all the pieces is so much shorter. On the finish of the day no matter they put in entrance of me, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Whereas Smith-Schuster is assured that he and his teammates will put an finish to the drops, the Steelers’ operating recreation must also enhance with the anticipated return of heart Maurkice Pouncey and operating again James Conner, who missed the final two instances after being positioned on the workforce’s reserve/COVID-19 record. With Pouncey and Conner out, the Steelers rushed for 90 complete yards over their final two video games, and at the moment are twenty ninth within the league in that division heading into Sunday’s recreation.
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