3 areas that are to blame for the Steelers awful start

Unless you have luck on your side, it’s tough to strive for perfection, and right now the Steelers have not had the best of it.

The Steelers so far this year defeated a team that was 3 quarters away from last year’s Super Bowl, but in the last three games, two teams that lost to weren’t in contention for a playoff spot last season. It was also starting to look like the seeds were being planted for Aaron Rodgers to come to Pittsburgh. It’s not a good look for the team to show inconsistency and lack of transparency.  We all know as fans what kind of DNA the Steelers organization has, and a bad start is not included.

A team like the Steelers normally does not get worse. Once they hit a rock bottom, they typically go up from there, and who’s to say 2021 could be a non-typical year, but we are all hoping it won’t. The Steelers are a team that’s dysfunctional and has a lot of issues, and there are 3 areas that hold most of the blame, Tomlin and Roethlisberger are not the only ones that deserve criticism despite what we have heard the past three weeks.

Discipline

Football is and always will be an 11 vs 11 sport, and you can’t put all responsibility on one person. Every player and coach is accountable for their actions and mistakes whether it’s a missed block, an ill-advised route, an over pursued tackle, or wide-open coverage.

Take any of the big plays against the Steelers and all could have been avoided if each player was disciplined and did their job to the best of their ability. One was the TD thrown by Derek Carr to give the Raiders the 2 possession lead, the second was the drive at the end of the 1st half vs the Bengals, and the third was the pass attempts Roethlisberger and JuJu missed against Green Bay.

Playcalling

This has been a problem area Pittsburgh seems to be stuck with no matter who the Coordinator or quarterback is. Out of an unlimited amount of plays in the playbook, it’s going to be a 50 / 50 shot which one is called.

The issue is that the playcalling needs to make sense of what down Pittsburgh is in, for offense or defense. I’ll give Matt Canada, the new Offensive Coordinator some slack because it is his first time calling plays at the pro level, but if anything isn’t working, give Ben the playbook and let him call the shots.

For each game, once Pittsburgh gets to a quicker tempo especially during the No-huddle formation, the Steelers score most of the time. Defensively it comes down to the packages that need to be addressed to tighten up the passing game.

Lack of Depth covering for many Injuries

Injuries are in no one’s control so when they happen, they happen. What a team needs to do is have backups that are close to the starter’s equal in terms of abilities. Key players like TJ Watt, Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson, and Chukwuma Okorafor have suffered injuries that have reduced the team’s performance, with other starters being moved around to cover for it and lessens the depth in other areas.

Part of the reason there’s a struggle in this department is the lack of experience among the backups, half of them are draft picks from the previous offseason. Once they get settled in and feel comfortable making an impact, Pittsburgh will be just fine.