All things considered, it was a mediocre week. The Penguins went 2-2, with wins against the Blue Jackets and Golden Knights bookending losses to the Devils and Hurricanes. Pitt football beat Boston College in a game that set football back two decades. Pitt basketball continued to roll with wins over Florida Gulf Coast and Jacksonville—they have a tough matchup with Florida coming up Wednesday. The Steelers—who will again be the crux of this rant—set football back even further than Pitt did, losing 13-10 to a Browns team led by Dorian Thompson-Robinson, a rookie making his second career start.
Everyone knows that the Browns have a good defense—they lead the league in total yards against and passing yards against, are seventh in rushing yards against, sixth in points against, and first in third down defense. All of this is to say that I did not expect the Steelers to light the Browns up. Hell, the Steelers can not even score against bad defenses. However, I still expected better than the pathetic display they put on yesterday.
The first series was a harbinger of things to come. After Browns’ punter Corey Bojorquez buried the Steelers at the seven-yard line after their drive stalled out around midfield, the Steelers barely—and I mean barely—escaped a safety twice: once on a Pickett sack that saw the ball be spotted inside the one, and once on a handoff that just inched past the goal line. Third down was essentially waving the white flag, dumping the ball off to Allen Robinson to gain just enough yards for Pressley Harvin to have room to punt.
Much of the first half proceeded the same way. Outside of a Browns’ touchdown on the drive immediately following the Steelers’ narrow goal line escape and a field goal at the end of the half to go up 10-0, it was essentially a punting contest, one which Harvin lost handily. The Steelers’ punter averaged only 39.4 yards per boot on 9 attempts throughout the entire 60 minutes, while Bojorquez averaged 47.5 yards on 8 punts. An average difference of 8.1 yards in field position is certainly not negligible.
The second half went slightly better. On the second play of the half, Jaylen Warren (our only productive offensive weapon) ran for a 74-yard touchdown. Now, after last week’s game, Warren stated that he was told he would be the starter. He played like a starter when he touched the ball. On 12 touches (9 carries and 3 receptions), he averaged 12.1 yards per touch—a stellar number. Granted, the number is inflated by the 74-yard scamper, but he was still decidedly more productive than Najee Harris, who averaged 2.8 yards on 13 touches. This all begs the question—WHY DID WARREN ONLY HAVE 12 TOUCHES? Can someone explain that to me? No, they cannot, because it is senseless. This is not to pin all the blame for the offensive struggles on this decision—there is plenty of blame to go around, and I will assign it proportionately—but why on earth are you not putting the ball in the hands of your most productive playmaker?
Let us move to the offensive line. I know that Cleveland has an incredibly nasty defensive line (led by Myles Garrett, who is perennially near the top of the sacks list), but the performance in pass protection was nothing short of abysmal. Pickett (who was horrendous—we will discuss this later) had no time to throw whatsoever. He may have “only” been sacked three times yesterday, but he was under pressure on almost every drop-back. No quarterback can be successful passing the ball with pass-rushers constantly in his face.
Matt Canada, you need to be fired. I do not know if it was your decision to keep Najee in the game over Warren, but the play calls were disgusting regardless of who was playing. Stop with the ridiculous screens! We have shown time and again that we do not have the personnel to run screen passes effectively. Every play call is telegraphed to the point where I know what is coming—do you not think the opposing defenses know as well? The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the game was 10-10 and the Steelers were on the Browns’ 40-yard line late in the 4th. Canada called one of his screens which lost five yards, taking the team out of field goal range, and putting the ball back in the hands of the Browns. I have seen enough to know that Canada is completely incompetent and would not even have success at the high-school level.
I am also going to take a brief moment before impugning Pickett and the receivers to discuss the referees. I have always been an advocate of the mantra, “if one call is the difference between winning and losing, you do not deserve to win”. This is still the case, but I can not help but feel as though the Browns got away with murder. Every ticky-tacky call went against the Steelers—phantom defensive holdings, defensive delay-of-game (what???)—and the Browns eluded penalty for clear infractions. It takes more than two hands to count the number of egregious offensive holdings that their offensive line committed without penalty. For a crew that calls a lot of fouls (looking at you, Shaun Hochuli), there certainly appeared to be a bias in the team against whom the flags were levied.
Finally, we need to have a discussion about Kenny Pickett. He is in a horrible situation, without a doubt. His offensive coordinator has a room temperature (Celsius) IQ. His offensive line cannot protect him. However, he has not shown any signs of being the quarterback the Steelers thought they were getting in the first round. Friends of mine (very cruelly) have been sending me incredulous statistics about Pickett (e.g., he only throws for a touchdown on 1.9% of pass attempts). Tommy DeVito has more 3-touchdown performances in his career than Pickett (DeVito has two career starts). Not all of this is on Kenny—Diontae Johnson cannot catch, and George Pickens does not stop whining—but there is a lot about which we should be concerned. His accuracy is lacking. He has no pocket awareness. He will not throw across the middle of the field. How much of this is his fault? I do not pretend to know, but it is time to stop making excuses and start looking for the guy that went 11-2 his senior year at Pitt.
Throughout that dreadful performance, the same phrase ran through my head constantly: “what the hell am I watching?” Well, maybe it was a bit more profane than that. Regardless, that is the game that needs to be ground zero for massive changes. Amazingly, the Steelers are 6-4 and face backup QB Jake Browning and the Bengals next weekend. However, if we cannot beat DTR and the Browns, why should I think we would be able to beat the Bengals?
Have a great Thanksgiving. Thank you for reading.