The Steelers seemed like they struggled quite a bit when it came to Red Zone offense last season.
For a team that ranked highly in yards and points, they ranked near the bottom third in the NFL at 19th in Red Zone efficiency (51.72%).
Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley agreed with probably most fans when he said that the Red Zone offense needs to improve while speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
"When we get inside that 35 we can’t give points away, whether it’s three points or 7… When we get in tight, when football gets tough, we have to get the ball in the end zone."
Thank you, Captain Obvious. At least he’s acknowledging the problem. And, we all know that’s the first step to recovery, right?
PennLive.com reported that the Steelers scored 436 points last season and that he felt that the offense left 30-35 points on the table due to their Red Zone problems.
"You add those on to what was a pretty good total of points, which is the name of the game, we probably would’ve been feeling even better about what we did."
Feeling better? Yeah. Feeling better because you probably would have racked up an extra win or two over the course of the season. Maybe even put a bit more pressure on the Rat Birds in the Wild Card game last season.
Quite frankly, I would argue against that the Steelers left 30-35 points on the table in their Red Zone efficiency. That means somewhere between 6-7 possessions out of the entire season’s worth of Red Zone trips failed to get points… which then means they only made it to the Red Zone 12-14 times last season.
The math doesn’t add up, and I seriously doubt that teams fairing better in RZ efficiency had only a handful of missed opportunities inside the 35 yard line.
I think Boss Todd needs to look at the data a little more and keep taking more doses of reality. There were more points left hanging out there for the taking.
The Red Zone offense needs a lot of work. I’m glad that he at least admits that it was a problem last year. Maybe he meant that the 30-35 points were Ben’s fault and not the lack of solid play calling that caused drives to stall out time and time again.
Certainly it can’t be the vanilla that gets served up time and time again.
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