Be honest, did you really expect the Pittsburgh Steelers to put up 30 points today in Cincinnati? If you did, then I’d really like to play the lottery with you because you’ll believe in anything. The Steelers ended up with about half of that total winning 16-10 over the Bengals and despite the pedestrian point total, there were some things that saw improvement. It was after all just five days ago that the team parted ways with Matt Canada. So what did Mike Sullivan and Eddie Faulkner do differently? Let’s take a look.
The Whole Field
On the very first play of the game Kenny Pickett hit Pat Freiermuth down the middle for a nice gain. There was likely a registered earthquake in the Steel City with so many people falling out of their chairs at the site of this. It was a sign of things to come however. Pickett would find Muth again several times between the hashes and Darnell Washington had a nice grab as well in the same area.
There’s no doubt that Pickett still isn’t getting through his progressions as he should be because he had open receivers in the middle several times today. He opted instead for wide throws or sideline throws. But, the fact that Sullivan and Faulkner finally used the middle of the field is a huge step forward for the offense.
Helping Najee
We’ve all said the same things over and over about Najee Harris. He’s not hitting the hole hard enough or with a full head of steam. That changed today.
It sure seemed to me that there was a concerted effort to get Harris the ball deeper in the backfield. In several instances they went ‘pistol’ with Harris directly behind Pickett who would turn and hand him the ball. That extra yard or two allowed him to build speed and get a look at the hole just a tad sooner than usual as well.
Truth be told, the Bengals came in ranked 28th against the run so the Steelers didn’t exactly whip anyone special. They did what they had to in this department and those toss sweeps also helped wear down the Bengals’ front seven.
Back to the First Point
I could have easily included this in my first point but it sure looked like Sullivan and Faulkner noticed they had a pretty good receiving tight end who was being vastly underused. Pat Freiermuth had 120 yards receiving today and I’m not suggesting that’s what we should expect every week from him.
It is however expected that he be utilized more than he had been under Matt Canada and today he was. Some of that was dictated by how the Bengals played defense in terms of what they were willing to give but make no mistake, using the tight ends seems to be a major priority for the Steelers’ offense.
There shouldn’t have been overly high expectations going into today but when the team hit 400 yards of total offense for the first time since 2020, it was clear that something was going much better than it had been. The Steelers now get a couple of home games against two of the worst teams in the league keep improving this offense.
