PITTSBURGH — "It was like he was out there playing Madden."
No, that wasn't Diontae Johnson describing Matt Canada's play calling against the New England Patriots on Sunday.
It was Miami wide receiver Tyreek Hill talking about coach Mike McDaniel after the Dolphins put up 42 points in a win against the Baltimore Ravens.
Aren't you envious?
The Steelers' troubled offense might need three games to score 42.
It has become a popular pastime here to play the blame game with an offense that has mustered just one touchdown in each of the first two games. I'm willing to participate in the fun. I wouldn't want to miss it.
Mitch Trubisky deserves to take plenty of heat. He produced just one good drive in each of the games by making a couple of big-time throws. The touchdown pass to Pat Freiermuth against the Patriots was a beauty. So was the two-point conversion pass to Johnson. But overall, Trubisky has done a poor job getting the ball downfield. On one of the rare occasions he tried Sunday, he badly underthrew Najee Harris in the fourth quarter.
The offensive line, though a bit better, also has to take responsibility for some of the ineptitude. It largely has done a good job of protecting Trubisky in the two games, but its run-blocking has been substandard. There have been few places for Harris or Jaylen Warren to run, which makes it awfully difficult to get any kind of play-action passing game going.
But I'm putting most of the blame on Canada and Mike Tomlin.
Is it just me, or does the offense look almost identical to the one last season?
You know, the one everyone said would be much better with a quarterback with more mobility than Ben Roethlisberger?
Trubisky has hardly used his legs. There have been few rollouts, few moving pockets, few designed runs. Tomlin gave a smart-aleck answer when asked about that during his Monday press briefing:
"I'm not going to come in and install the triple option, if that's what you're referring to."
Thanks, coach.
Tomlin gave conflicting answers when asked about Trubisky and the downfield passing game. He said Trubisky is "working hard to execute our agenda." But earlier he said, "I thought we had one-on-one, play-making opportunities, particularly in open space, with some of our receivers versus defensive backs. We didn't get that done."
It almost looks as if Trubisky is afraid to throw the deep ball. If he is, it's because Tomlin and Canada have told him to be super careful with the football. Tomlin said as much publicly after the Cincinnati game: "With downfield throwing comes the potential of negativity and turning the ball over." He said something similar Sunday after the game: "[The Patriots] are a group that really specializes in minimizing big plays, splash plays defensively. That's been their calling card."
So Trubisky and the Steelers shouldn't even try to go deep?
Talk about living in your fears.
Three ways the offense looks virtually identical to last season:
One, the starts have been beyond abysmal. The offense scored no points in the first quarter against New England after getting just a field goal in the opener in Cincinnati. In the final nine games last season, including the playoff loss in Kansas City, the offense scored only a field goal in the first quarter of three of the games and was shut out six times. It hasn't scored a first-quarter touchdown since Week 10 last season against Detroit.
It's hard not to look at Canada for the rotten starts. Doesn't he script at least the first handful of plays?
Two, the Steelers have mastered the art of throwing short of the first-down marker on third down. Remember the home game against Cincinnati last season? On fourth down from the Bengals 11 with the team down two touchdowns late, the play was a dump pass to Harris that lost 1 yard. Tomlin explained afterward, "We had fired all of our bullets at that juncture in terms of some of our play selection."
I don't think the Steelers ran out of plays Sunday, although nothing would surprise me with Canada. I do know on at least two occasions on third down, Trubisky checked down to Jaylen Warren or Harris far short of the sticks.
And three, the offense was at its best Sunday and produced its only touchdown drive when Trubisky used the no-huddle. The offense was most successful last season when Roethlisberger took over the play-calling from Canada in the second half of games and did his own thing. Seven of their nine wins came with a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime.
"We've shown even last year and into this year in the preseason when we go tempo and two-minute, that's when we are really going," Freiermuth said. "I think we can sprinkle in a little more tempo in each drive to get us going."
There was plenty of second-guessing going on in the Steelers' huddle Sunday. Trubisky acknowledged as much. None of the players fingered Canada directly, but it wasn't hard to decipher what they were thinking. I heard more than one say, "All we can do is run the plays that are called and execute better."
My translation:
"The play calling stinks, but what are we supposed to do?"
Everybody knew coming into the season that Canada would be facing intense scrutiny. Such is life for the Steelers offensive coordinator, one of the toughest positions in all of sports. After last season, it was fair to wonder if Canada was the right man for the job because he was in just his just his second season in the NFL. It's even fairer now that the Steelers used their top draft picks in April on Kenny Pickett and George Pickens and added offensive linemen James Daniels and Mason Cole as free agents. Pickett hasn't played yet despite the screams from the Acrisure Stadium crowd Sunday — "I didn't hear that," Tomlin said, defying belief — and Pickens was targeted a total of just six times in the first two games and has two catches. Shame on Canada and Trubisky for that.
Let me see if I have this right:
The bad offense last season was Roethlisberger's fault?
Now, I'm hearing a lot of people say it's Trubisky's fault?
Just one question:
When is it going to be Canada's fault?
