STEELERS Carter’s Classroom: What’s wrong with this offense?
ByChristopher CarterPosted on September 27, 2017 BEN ROETHLISBERGER CALLS OUT PRE-SNAP READS AGAINST THE BEARS. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
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Throughout Ben Roethlisberger‘s career, the Steelers have often fallen back on their ability to run the ball to open up opportunities for the passing game. Their offensive line has slowly improved each week this season, but still has not been winning at the right spots to give Le’Veon Bell the space to do what he does best.
Overall, the offense that was widely expected to produce 30 points per game now ranks 16th in the NFL at 21.3.
While many have speculated that the reason Bell has yet to rush for more than 100 yards is that he lacks his standard burst, I see the problem as the line. Bell is at his best when he has space to make the lightning-fast calls and cuts with his feet. What each of the Steelers’ first three opponents have been able to do is maintain the line of scrimmage and infiltrate the backfield to clog up any space Bell might have.
Back to Sunday in Chicago …
The Bears’ outside linebacker, No. 92 Pernell McPhee, lines up in the slot against JuJu Smith-Schuster, as should be expected with how the Bears normally handle slot receivers in their 3-4 defensive front. McPhee is matched up with the Steelers’ fullback, Roosevelt Nix, but Nix loses this battle and is shoved into the backfield, clogging up the room Bell needs to act on what the rest of the Steelers’ offensive line has been able to open up:
This lineup of putting McPhee out over the slot was something we covered in our preview last week, and it was one the Steelers did not exploit. If Nix is able to at least stonewall McPhee, Bell has the chance to have a one-on-one matchup with inside linebacker Danny Trevathan. That never happens and Bell runs into the back of Nix, ruining the entire play.
All it takes in football is for one player to not complete his assignment and a play can be destroyed. That happened with Nix in the above play, and again with Ramon Foster on the play below:
Watch how Foster’s job is to seal No. 90, defensive end Jonathan Bullard, to the inside and give David DeCastro a large enough hole to work through and lead block for Bell to follow. Bullard gets under Foster’s pad level, using his leverage and arm extension to push Foster closer to the hole, closing the space needed for DeCastro to attack and lead the way. Foster comes high out of his stance and is never able to recover.
The Steelers’ front has been losing these kinds of battles here and there in each of their first three games. While some, or even most of the offensive line can win their battles, if one person fails, the entire plan can crumble.
Getting everyone on point is key, as well as deciding to run the ball when the defensive alignment favors the chances of running the ball. In the above play the Bears have only six players lined up in the box, yet they are able to stop a running play.
Those type of plays are unacceptable when you have that kind of a mismatch. One of the primary benefits of the Steelers being able to spread the offense while keeping Bell in the backfield is forcing the defense to spread themselves out and open up more one-on-one opportunities for the offensive line to open up space for Bell to work.
Sometimes it has worked according to plan, like when Bell ran for 9 yards in the second quarter. Watch how Maurkice Pouncey controls his man, turning him to one side, while DeCastro seals his man to the outside, creating a hole for Bell to run through:
B.J. Finney does a solid job of accelerating to the second level and takes on the inside linebacker so that Bell can find space to move while at the second level and gain extra yardage.
It’s simple things like this that, if done consistently, can be the key to victory. The first step is to recognize the mismatches when they are available, but the second step is for the offensive line and other blockers to win their one-on-one battles and let Bell do the rest.
In the fourth quarter was the best example of how Bell still has that elite explosiveness on which his reputation stands.
Watch how the Steelers have the mismatch to the weak side of their formation, where Chris Hubbard, DeCastro and Pouncey each only have one man to block for Bell to have the space he needs to accelerate.
Hubbard keeps his man outside of the play, while Pouncey turns his man to the inside and DeCastro takes on the inside linebacker on his side.
Once Bell gets to the outside everyone could see how he cleared Kyle Fuller with a hurdle:
If there are any doubts as to whether Bell can still be a leader in the NFL when it comes to the running game, they should be placed on whether the offensive line can be consistent enough to win the line of scrimmage.
The other part of the offense that also needs to develop consistency is the passing game and how Ben Roethlisberger makes his decisions on who to target.
Roethlisberger threw the ball 22 times against the Bears, and almost half of his targets went to Antonio Brown.
Brown is the elite receiver whom Roethlisberger has depended on for several years now, so it makes sense that he uses him as a security blanket. While their chemistry is extraordinary and can lead to victory for the Steelers, the quarterback’s dependence on Brown can be too predictable at times and lead to him passing up easier opportunities for the Steelers to move the ball.
Take, for example, when the offense committed its only turnover of the game on a sack/fumble that Roethlisberger took from a cornerback blitz.
It was 3rd-and-8 and the Bears blitzed two additional players from the right side of the offensive line. Hubbard picks up the most inside man on the blitz, but nobody could stop the cornerback as he overloaded that side of the offense.
However one of the best ways to counter the blitz is to target your pass to the area the blitz vacated on defense. That left Eli Rogers, Jesse James and Bryant all in space with only two defenders between the three of them to cover an entire half of the field.
Watch Roethlisberger’s head and how he never even looks to his right and notice the Bears’ blitz, nor his open receivers:
Instead, Roethlisberger is looking at Brown, where three members of the Bears’ defense are sitting in zone assignments around Brown and Bell who lurks underneath.
Roethlisberger rightfully holds onto the ball and doesn’t try to force a pass into a trouble area, but does not look back to his other options and is eventually stripped of the ball before he can make a decision.
This is where Roethlisberger struggles the most, as he will pass up options in key situations just to look for Brown.
The Steelers succeeded on only two of their five third down attempts against the Bears, making them 12 of 37 on the season. That has them at a 32.4 percentage on the year, which ranks 25th in the NFL.
That has them behind teams like the Jets, Bills and even the Bears.
One of those 25 failures on third down came at a critical point when the Steelers had the ball late in the fourth quarter and were looking to break the 17-17 tie against the Bears.
The Bears lined up in a Cover 2 zone defense, leaving one safety responsible for each side of the deep part of the field. That leaves a lot of responsibility for their cornerback Fuller to cover underneath.
The right route combination is dialed up as the Steelers run a smash combination between Bell and Brown. The smash combination involves a short route underneath by the inside receiver and a deeper corner route by the outside receiver.
This puts the cornerback, Fuller in this situation who sits between the two highlighted players, to a decision to either cover the deep route or the underneath option. The deep safety cannot come up too aggressively without risking being beat deep, so it’s a bit of a challenge and usually a favorable matchup for an offense.
Fuller backs off Bell and tries to play in between him and Brown. Brown is the player highlighted in red, while Bell is the player highlighted in yellow. Bell is wide open at the first down marker, but Roethlisberger sees it as Fuller choosing to cover Bell instead of Brown, so he tests him with a target to Brown:
Fuller makes a solid play to break up the pass and almost intercepts the ball. This forces an incomplete pass and for the Steelers’ last real chance to score in regulation to go wasted.
These are the kinds of decisions that Roethlisberger must make successfully to improve the Steelers’ third down percentage. Doing so will extend drives and provide more opportunities for the Steelers’ weapons to make plays.
Making the right read is about understanding what defense your opponent presents. Roethlisberger started to do that consistently in the second quarter, when he threw for his only touchdown of the game and put the team in position to only be down four points with a field goal.
One of the more impressive reads was how he picked apart a Cover 6 defense.
Cover 6 is when the defense’s deep zone coverage is mixed with three defenders. However, instead of a normal Cover 3 scheme where each deep defender is responsible for an equal third of the field, two safeties are each responsible for a quarter of one side of the field, while the other is responsible for half of the field.
The reason it is called Cover 6 is because half the field resembles the concept of a Cover 4 defense, with the two deep defenders covering a quarter of the field, and the other side resembling a Cover 2 defense (Cover 2 + Cover 4 = Cover 6).
A quarterback can recognize this by seeing the two backed off members of the secondary shading to one side, while a lone deep defender plays to the other side of the field. The two players playing quarter zone coverage are highlighted in yellow, while the safety covering half the field is highlighted in red.
Defeating the Cover 6 has two options, either attacking the Cover 4 resembling side or the Cover 2 resembling side. Roethlisberger gets the proper matchup on the Cover 2 side, very similar to the earlier reviewed play when he targeted Brown instead of Bell, while the Steelers’ offense runs a smash combination again to that side:
This time the cornerback playing underneath takes on the lower option, leaving Brown plenty of space to run his corner route and present an easy target for Roethlisberger.
When Roethlisberger is able to do this consistently and target any of his options based on where the weakness in the defense lies, rather than where his favorite target is, this offense realizes its true potential.
If the Steelers’ offense wants to climb from the bottom of the league’s rankings, it will need more consistency in both its front being physical at the point of attack and its quarterback making better decisions on where to attack opponents’ coverage schemes.
https://www.dkpittsburghsports.com/2017/09/27/carters-classroom-whats-wrong-steelers-offense/
