4 things the Pittsburgh Steelers will not do, despite our wishes

Open up the offense

After an offense that has apparently flatlined down the stretch, Steelers fans would love to see nothing more than for Fichtner and Mike Tomlin to open things up on offense and start slinging the ball down the field. However, that seems increasingly unlikely to me.

For starters, Pittsburgh has built their offense around protecting their aging quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger clearly doesn’t have much escapability at this point, and he is one of the least-touched quarterbacks in the league for a reason. But that isn’t the only reason Pittsburgh’s brass is going to take a hard pass on opening up the offense.

In addition to trying to protect Big Ben, Roethlisberger has been arguably the worst quarterback in the league at being able to connect with his receivers down the field. According to Playerprofiler.com, Ben ranks at the bottom of the NFL in terms of his deep ball accuracy in 2020 – which shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve seen all of Pittsburgh’s games this year.

Additionally, the offensive line is not playing their best football, and Tomlin isn’t going to allow Roethlisberger to take any unnecessary hits trying to hold onto the ball too long. Is this short passing game a recipe for offensive success? Certainly not. However, if the coaches haven’t changed something up by now, there’s no reason to expect them to do so anytime soon.