3 pitfalls Steelers must avoid for the 2020 season to be successful

The Steelers must accentuate strengths and minimize weaknesses on both sides of the ball

So when I say that the Steelers must accentuate strengths and minimize weakness on both sides of the ball, that seems to be a pretty basic philosophy; however, last season it appeared that, at least for one player, his strengths were not accentuated.

James Conner, our starting RB, was seemingly asked to run the ball outside of what I would label as his strength, which is between the tackles.  I don’t know about you, but Conner, to me, is not an ‘outside zone’ kind of RB.  He’s more of a ‘ground and pound’ type of RB.

I realize the Steelers offense in 2019 was just trying to do whatever it had to do to win games, so I will give them a ‘pass’ on a lot of the issues we witnessed.  It also did not help that Conner missed 6 games due to injury.

What also did not help is this:  We had only one RB on the roster whom I would label as a ‘lightning’ RB; however, he saw very limited action.  So rather than establishing the ‘ground and pound’, between the tackles running game, the Steelers were trying to run what appeared to me to be more ‘outside zone’ than anything else.

This season, I believe we will get back a running game that accentuates the strengths of Conner as well as newcomer Anthony McFarland Jr., the Steelers 4th round pick, who can be that ‘lightning’ the offense was lacking in 2019.  So, let’s ‘ground and pound’ with Conner and run ‘outside zone’ with McFarland, Jr.  Sounds good to me.

Let’s see how the Steelers can address the defensive side of the ball.