4 takeaways from Steelers Week 2 loss vs Raiders

The Steelers aren’t going to be able to run the ball effectively until they change schematically.

It seemed as though every other time the Steelers ran the ball from under center Najee Harris was making something happen. Yet nearly half of his carries were from the shotgun and it was not working for Pittsburgh.

Per Espn, Najee Harris rushed 10 times for 38 yards. Four of his 10 runs were from the shotgun and he totaled seven yards on these carries. He averaged 1.75 yards per carry from the shotgun. His other six carries from formations other than shotgun totaled 31 yards. He averaged 5.1 yards per carry from any formation other than center.

The nicest run of the day was a 14-yard scamper up the middle from a 2 tight end set. It was a trap concept which involves your center motioning towards one of the guard spots and that guard pulls to clean up the hole for the runner. Kevin Dotson pulled and sprung Harris up the middle where Freirmuth had worked his way downfield to give number 22 extra room.

The moral of the story is simple, if the Steelers really are committing to the run, they will start presenting run formations. We saw that Pittsburgh has the ability to perform these types of plays well. If they don’t then Pittsburgh isn’t as committed to the run game as we thought.