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A lot has changed with the Pittsburgh Steelers — but not really. The offense continues to struggle, only this time with a different quarterback. Like in 2021, fans and the media debate who’s to blame — the quarterback, the offensive coordinator or both. The common denominator over two seasons is offensive coordinator Matt Canada.
Sure, it’s only Week 3 and the Steelers are 1-1, but things are not headed in the right direction.
Aggressive. It’s a word that quarterback Mitch Trubisky has used the most since his first regular season press conference on September 11. Yet aggressiveness is what the offense lacks the most.
Through nine quarters of football, Pittsburgh’s 30th in the NFL in total yards per game (255), and its 36 points scored are good for 29th in the league, per NFL.com.
“We haven’t scored enough points here the last couple weeks,” Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said in a September 19 press conference. “But that’s a collective. Not just the quarterback position. Not just the players. It’s all of us that are responsible for ringing up the scoreboard.”
Thus far, Trubisky is struggling in his first year in Matt Canada’s offense. To a point, the quarterback is only a product of the system and scheme. Right now, that system and its players lack cohesion. You see it on the field, and you hear it in the press conferences. It’s challenging to get an offense firing on all cylinders when its players can’t even get on the same page.
Trubisky revealed in a September 18 postgame press conference that the Steelers huddle hasn’t exactly been about teamwork.
“When everybody is saying, ‘Call this play, call that play,’ it makes it tough for everybody to do their jobs,” Trubisky said. “Everyone’s got suggestions. Everybody wants the ball in their hands. I think everybody just needs to worry about their job.
“We’ll just keep growing and going in the right direction together. That’s my take on it. We’ve got a bunch of talent, and we’ve just got to figure out what works best for us going forward.”
Trubisky isn’t finger-pointing, so it’s unclear exactly who the message is for. But arguing in the huddle had only led to a junior varsity disaster.
Steelers Are Mitch Trubisky’s Team
Like him or not, Mitch Trubisky is the captain and leader of this revamped offense. He should be vocal in his role and lead his men when there’s conflict.
When teams win in a convincing fashion, they’re happy as clams and rarely have any drama. But when they aren’t playing well, everything changes.
Fans booing Trubisky and calling for Kenny Pickett fail to realize the problem starts with the play-calling. It won’t matter who you stick back there at quarterback if the scheme (and the offensive line) is a hot mess. If there are any significant adjustments made, it won’t happen until the November 6 Week 9 Bye. Even so, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin seems resistant.
“I don’t know if significant changes is what’s required,” Tomlin said when asked about the challenges of making changes on a short week.
Steelers Limiting Mitch Trubisky
It appears that Trubisky is hamstrung by not being able to call plays at the line of scrimmage. He said in a September 20 press conference that he’d “like to get into a different play at the line of scrimmage.”
At his own press conference that day, Canada said that’ll come with time.
“We’re evolving to that, too,” Canada said. “You have a guy who played 18 years [Ben Roethlisberger] and a guy who just got here [Mitch Trubisky] with a bunch of young players. We’re slowly building to that. We’re not where we want to be, and we’re building to that.”
Trubisky may be new to the Steelers, but he’s played in this league for seven seasons, one of which he was a Pro Bowler and two others where he took the Chicago Bears to the playoffs.
It’s time to give Trubisky more freedom. It can’t get any worse, right?
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