The Steelers' 2024 regular season reached its crescendo at home against the Cincinnati Bengals with a rather inauspicious conclusion. Put aside the margin of victory for a minute and ponder this statistic: One team amassed three hundred and fourteen total yards; the other amassed a meager one hundred and ninety-three total yards.
We generated less than two hundred yards but lost the game by only two points. We were also in a position to possibly win the game late in the fourth quarter but we could not get a first down to keep the drive going. Frankly, that was the theme of the game.
Let's see what we learned on the offensive side of the ball.
Steelers' offense continues to regress to the point of no return
Look, every season has a point where you must call it for what it is. In previous discussions, I stated that when Arthur Smith was hired to be the new offensive coordinator, I had hoped that the offense would get back to its roots of establishing the run to set up the pass.
For the most part, the running game was re-established, but the passing game did not follow suit. There was such an imbalance between the passing game and the running game that there may be no hope of those two ever being in equilibrium.
To put it into perspective, the offense managed a tad under one hundred and twenty yards through the air and a tad under seventy-five yards on the ground against the Bengals. For the season, the offense averaged one hundred and ninety-two yards passing, which is good enough for the bottom quartile, and averaged one hundred and twenty-seven yards on the ground, which is good enough for the second quartile.
Therein lies the imbalance. The modern NFL is a passing league. Our offense is not good enough in the passing game to mount a comeback, for example, if need be, or to get that 'one play' TD, if need be. That falls squarely on the shoulders of Mike Tomlin and, by extension, Arthur Smith.
Two facets of the Bengals game that were most perturbing and alarming to me were the third down conversion rate and the time of possession. We managed to convert only four of twelve third-down conversion opportunities. For those keeping score at home, that translates to a thirty-three percent conversion rate, We only possessed the ball for twenty-two minutes. Just awful.
Let's see what we learned on the defensive side of the ball.
Pittsburgh's defense kept us in the game (finally)
Stop me if you heard this one before. The theme of the 2024 Steelers defense was similar to the theme the defense displayed during the 2022 and 2023. Although the defense surrendered three-hundred and fourteen yards of offense to the Bengals, we only gave up nineteen points.
We also generated four sacks and nabbed an INT, but that wasn't good enough. We gave the ball back to the offense on what would prove to be the final possession of the game, but that was also not good enough as the offense turned the ball over on downs.
Although the Steelers' defense ended the 2024 season with a second-quartile ranking in total yards allowed per game, we finished with a third-quartile ranking in passing yards allowed per game. That was the 'bug a boo' against the Bengals.
Frankly, the Bengals didn't even need to run the ball. They did run the ball solely to keep us honest, but the passing game was 'clicking' for them to the point where the run game became an afterthought. The inability to deploy a scheme against a team we know will pass the ball prolifically falls squarely on the shoulders of Tomlin and, by extension, Teryl Austin.
Let's see what else we learned.
Steelers enter the playoffs with more questions than answers
Losing four straight to end a season is no way to enter the playoffs but that is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves. There's plenty of blame to go around, but the 'buck stops' with Tomlin. As I have stated many times before, I am a Mike Tomlin supporter, but I am not a Mike Tomlin apologist.
The 2024 season was a microcosm of what we have witnessed during Tomlin's reign as our head coach. I appreciate and admire the fact that we have never had a losing season since Tomlin has been our head coach. That is a remarkable achievement.
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While I would not trade Tomlin for any other coach, Tomlin needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that Russell Wilson is not the long-term answer at quarterback. Wilson's performances in the final four games of the season were downright atrocious. Would Tomlin be willing to make a change at the QB position?
Our only viable deep threat, George Pickens, had a game to forget. Pickens had zero yards on one reception. That's correct. Pickens caught one out of six passes thrown his way for zero yards. How will Tomlin handle this potential volcano waiting to erupt?
How will Tomlin address the inability of the offense to sustain drives and put the points on the board? How will Tomlin address the failures on the defensive side of the ball to contain an opponent's passing game? At this point in the season, there should be more answers than questions, not the other way around.