The Pittsburgh Steelers pulled out the win late against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 6, but it was an ugly game for the team. For almost two-thirds of the game, Pittsburgh was anemic and struggling to do anything on offense.
For a proclaimed offensive guru in Mike McCarthy, this was a bitter pill to swallow.
While a lot of the focus and critique has fallen on Aaron Rodgers (and rightfully so), there is an obvious level of malpractice that McCarthy’s Steelers showed on Sunday. It centers on breakout running back Jaylen Warren.
On a notable tear since Rico Dowdle went down with an injury, Warren turned into the bell cow back for Pittsburgh. He was playing around 90% of the offensive snaps and was putting up elite production. While Dowdle is a talented back, Warren needed to be given the opportunity to continue to shine.
Instead, McCarthy inexplicably returned these two to a timeshare and got away from the run altogether at times. It nearly cost the Steelers the win.
The Pittsburgh Steelers were obviously misusing Jaylen Warren against the Buccaneers
The final share count for the running back room doesn’t appear that bad. Warren accounted for around 74 percent of the snaps while Dowdle got 27 percent. This seems like a realistic split given how good Warren has been.
The snap share doesn’t tell the whole story. For the first three quarters, when the Steelers amassed all of three points, the Warren-Dowdle split was far too close. Warren still outpaced his running mate, but the spread was a lot closer, at 55% to Warren and 42% to Dowdle.
I’m not sure how to describe the Steelers offense early in this game. There aren’t a lot of kind words that can be said, given how badly this team played.
Pittsburgh opted to not run the ball a lot early on as they favored the pass (with poor results). When they did run, they split the running back room and kept the ball out of your best offensive player. This is inexcusable.
Heading into the fourth quarter and overtime, the Steelers finally turned to their stud running back. Of the 37 offensive snaps that were played, Warren got about 84 percent of the plays. Unsurprisingly, the offense opened up with Warren back at the helm.
Warren got over half of his total yards during this stretch. There is no reason that he shouldn’t have been used more early on.
You had arguably the hottest offensive player over the course of a few weeks at your disposal, and your decision was to initially split reps between Warren and Dowdle. That doesn’t make sense as a coach.
Dowdle certainly does need snaps. Warren shouldn’t be getting 90 percent of the snaps with a healthy Dowdle in the room.
However, a 55-45 split like what the Steelers were favoring early in the game is not going to work. Warren is playing at a dynamic level right now. McCarthy is botching his breakout season. It didn’t cost the Steelers in Week 6, but it can’t continue moving forward.
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