The Pittsburgh Steelers offense put together their best performance of 2024 in their 27-24 Week 4 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. Offensively, the Steelers seem to have improved each week of the season, which is a promising sign. However, they still need to find more consistency on that side of the ball. On the year, Pittsburgh has been an average to slightly-below-average team offensive team. There are a few steps they can take, starting in their Week 5 Sunday Night Football matchup with the Dallas Cowboys, to keep improving offensively.
How The Steelers Offense Can Find Consistency in Week 5
Improve Early-Down Efficiency
A look at Pittsburgh’s third-down offense would lead one to believe the team has a pretty good offense. However, they are drastically held back by their inefficiency on first and second down. They aren’t a great early-down passing team, but their early-down running efficiency has been particularly bad.
Rushing and passing efficiency on early downs
We all know the Browns are horrible (hate to see it), but the Bears' passing offense is…struggling pic.twitter.com/p7RsaiJH4P
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) October 1, 2024
The Steelers offense has had a terrible combination of poor early-down rushing efficiency (bottom-1o in the league), running too often on early downs (23rd-highest early-down passing rate), and the league’s worst yards per carry on first down. So, their problems are twofold. Ideally, they should be running the ball less early in drives. But if they want to stick to early-down runs, they at least need to become much more efficient at it. The two problems go hand-in-hand; they struggle to rush successfully on early downs because teams are expecting them to run.
Luckily for the Steelers offense, the Cowboys run defense is their most favorable matchup yet this season. It’s a good week for a get-right game, especially with Dallas banged up on the defensive line. Jaylen Warren and Cordarrelle Patterson both seem unlikely to play, which won’t help, but the offensive line still has every opportunity to create lanes for Najee Harris to utilize.
Return of Isaac Seuamlo Will Help
Veteran left guard Isaac Seumalo appears on track to return from his pectoral injury in Week 5, which would mark his season debut. While Pittsburgh’s offensive line has been solid this year, Seumalo will provide a huge boost. Especially following James Daniels’ season-ending injury against the Colts, the Steelers desperately need a strong veteran presence on their offensive line, especially in the interior.
After Daniels left the Week 4 game, the Steelers interior offensive line featured Mason McCormick, Zach Frazier, and Spencer Anderson, two rookies, and one second-year player. The lack of experience and familiarity likely contributed to communication issues both with the snap cadence and blocking assignments. Seumalo will be one of the Steelers top blockers immediately upon retiring and should allow Zach Frazier to continue to shine. With Daniels and rookie Troy Fautanu out for the season, the Steelers offense won’t get a better starting offensive line group than what they’ll have this week.
Open Up the Playbook
The best thing Arthur Smith can do to take the Steelers offense to the next level is take the training wheels off for Justin Fields. When Pittsburgh fell behind three scores to the Colts and needed to play aggressively, it was the best their offense had looked all season. Hopefully, it was enough to get through to Smith that Justin Fields is capable of leading a high-scoring offense. Too often, it seems like Smith calls play with the intention of winning games 10-7.
One aspect of play calling that Smith has done well is allowing Fields to use his legs, especially in the red zone. His athletic abilities make him tough to stop on RPOs when the Steelers are close to the goal line. Smith should keep relying on Fields’ rushing abilities when needed, while also airing the ball downfield more often, specifically early in games. The Steelers elite defense can’t always be perfect. There are games where they will slip up, like they showed against the Colts. In those games, the Steelers offense needs to be able to win a shootout, and they showed in Week 4 they are able to do so if Arthur Smith lets them.
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