Been a Steelers fan for about 20 years, so I’ve seen the super bowl wins and loss, the transition from Cowher to Tomlin, and an endless string of complaints (from myself included) aimed at the Steelers many OC’s during that span not named Ken Whisenhunt. As disastrous as the offense has been at times the last handful of years, I feel like it kind of gets lost in the shuffle how middle of the road the offense was in 2008 when they last won it all.
Yes they had multiple future Hall of Famers on that offense, but when you look at the numbers, they finished 22nd in overall offense, didn’t have a 1000 yard rusher and Ben threw 17 TDs to 15 INTs that year. They did score over 30 points several times that year, but for the most part they were carried by a legendary defense and were in some low scoring scraps that season.
My question is, aside from a super bowl win or a deep playoff run, what would it take for Steeler Nation to finally say "okay we’re in a good spot offensively’?
Losing to KC once again in the playoffs
I think just keep winning game. We are bound to get something going sooner than later.
I would like to see us make the playoffs and put up a good showing even if we lose in the first round. A playoff win would be a bonus and making it to the AFCC game would be really surprising.
Well a start for me would be a Kenny Pickett break out game where he throws for more than 2 TDs. I’m not asking for 5 like CJ Stroud not even a 4 TD game like the other Rookie Levis had. Just a 3 TD game to show Kenny isn’t a total bust.
I have a sizeable bet that I took pre regular season that said the Steelers will have the same or better record as the Fins so that would be pretty awesome. Little did I know the offense would be…. This bad.
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Consistent usage/high level play of our offensive weapons would help. Imagine a game where: Najee, Warren, GP14, DJ, Pat F, Heyward, and CA3 got involved. We don’t need anyone particularly to go for 100 yards, but it never feels like the ball is being spread around tbh.
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Putting together 4 quarters of competent offense…Imagine a game getting at-least 1 TD every quarter and being able to get up to 28+ pts just once.
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Having a game with 0 self-inflicted problems(No INTs, bad throws, drops, free pass rushers, ect.) It feels like so often we have guys open and they’re missed or running lanes not taken.
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Last thing would be getting to the point where the offense is good enough for Coach T to be willing to go for 4th downs more often. To me it would represent a trust in the offense to make plays
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A new quarterback and a new offensive coordinator
9-8
600 yards per game and 4 touchdowns each game. 200 yards per game running.
2008 did not have multiple HOFers. Ben will make it. Nobody else will. Not Ward, Holmes, Parker, or Miller.
What other HOF are you pretending this team had?
I’ve been trying to make this point all season. This offense does look bad, but it doesn’t look any worse then the ugly baby offense we had when Ben won his first ring. It’s been almost 20 years, so maybe people forgot how bad it was, but no one (and I do mean no one) had us going to the superbowl that year (let alone winning it).