Red Zone Offense

I think our RED ZONE OFFENSE was the biggest issue with offense. We would have won all games but maybe the Chargers game.

We need to get a bigger wr in Here for a matchup problem. Or we need to run sharper routes.

Most of you know that I thought they should have used Plax this year at end of season to do this.

 

The WR we have are okay but you need to have more physical types in the red zone, this has been an issue for a couple of years now.

 

Personally, I think they should have brought Plax in BEFORE the season started. Ben loves him. But who cares what our franchise qb wants?

However, after seeing Plax in person at the Cleveland game, I can tell you there is a reason he was removed from the lineup. His legs weren't back. He needed more time to get back into 'football shape.' That is why you saw him used in the Cleveland game but disappeared after that. He's not in shape.

I hope that they bring him back though. We could use him. I feel like the biggest thing we were missing in this offense from a year ago was a chain-mover wr. We really missed Hines Ward. We need a possession receiver. I don't know that we had that this year.

 

Our lack of red zone scoring is one area that I think can be directly attributed to Ben. If you look at our numbers with Ben at te helm they have been consistently average at best. I don't know what it will take to improve those numbers, but too me Ben is clearly part of the problem there no matter who is calling the shots.​

 

at one point this year Ben had 16 tds and 0 ints in the redzone. i dont think Ben is the problem its the play calling. they brought in Plax and never used him. its like they get down close and they have no game plan as to how to score. everything looks hard. i watch other teams and they have wide open recievers. the Steelers make it look like they are playing with 2 guys against 20 down there.

they need to come up with a much better plan of attack once they hit the 10 yardline.

 

The redzone offense kept it close but the games were lost with unforced fumbles when our guys were running free. All are fixable though

 

Our O line doesn't get a push, our running backs are subpar and our receivers are soft in heavy traffic. That is why Ben goes to Heath so much in the red zone - really doesn't have any other viable option.

 

You have to look at the whole picture, not a sample that suits you. The 2012 Steelers scored td's 52% of the time good for 18th-19th in the league. If I remember correctly last year we were 50-51%.

 

I agree we are 20th ish in red zone offense and we are 20th ish in the lezgue for a record. These stats back I up. Remember last year we were not good in the red zone either. Our coaches need to improve plan by redzone. Our wr are not even tough enough anymore to run the slants down their. Insert. Hines Ward

 

what stat did i point out to suit me? i was just pointing out the fact that Ben had pretty good numbers in the redzone when the play call was good. scoring tds on 50% of the time they reach the redzone is terrible. as i stated they look like its 2 against 20 when they reach the redzone usually. to me thats all about play calling more than its the players.

 

Then why didn't we fix it?

 

isnt that one reason we got plax? the RZ specialists? lol. how many times did we throw to him or how many tiems was he even in as a diversion in the RZ? how many catches did he have ? i remember 1 ?

HINES

 

I think partially it's a matter of poor clutch decision-making. For example, in last week's loss to Cinci, Ben had a 3 & 1 from the 2 yard line, and attempted a scoring pass [unfortunately dropped by Rainey as I recall]. He had a relatively open lane to the chains where we could have 3 more attempts to score. Instead, we missed the chip shot field goal.

 

We brought in Plax for depth after Brown and Cotchery were injured and Gilreath( think it was him) was claimed off waivers. If I remember correctly they only dressed plax for two games and didn't get more than 2-3 targets. I know one was an Int during the Browns game and another was a good for a roughly 15 yards on a 3rd down. Outside of that he didn't get much action.

 

That was a bad play call. Probably the worst this year. 3 & 1 and go into a shotgun formation and throw to you 5' 7" back in the end zone?

This is why I think we are in trouble with the style of offense. I wanna sure touchdown there in a close game with no offense going I want the smart play here, even run it twice with your fullback blocking if you have to.

And I don't want to run Rainey up the middle with no fullback like we did in another game.

Sorry, but we had some stupid play calling in the red zone this year

 

Our offensive struggles are directly related to our personnel. We have no possession receiver, we have no running game and we have a terrible Oline. That's all on the players. Playcalling won't mask those things.

 

it was good enough for 12-4 the prior two seasons.

 

I didn't say we fixed it, I said it's fixable. Hopefully next year we can get better metally and physically. I'm trying to be positive given we have a long time (Nine months) before we can even see if they righted this ship.