Simpleton offensive plan

Lets forget the individual play calls for a minute and focus on the offensive plan. The plan itself was waaaaaaaay too simplistic and decided on by simpletons.

Steelers came into the game with the plan of running 22 up the gut no matter what without any thought of keeping the Bills D off balance. The Bills came into the game with the simple plan of stopping 22 running up the gut no matter what without any worry of Steelers doing anything different.

Remember in 2005 when everyone and their dog thought Steelers would run 36 up the gut against Indy, and the first play was a pass to Heath for a long gain? Steelers passed for 70+ yards on the first drive for a TD. That kept Indy's defense totally confused and Steelers build a big lead.

in 2023, it's simpleton city for the Steelers.

Saddest part is that Rudolph best attribute is the deep pass, and Pickens can catch deep. The very very first play should have been a PA bomb to someone, or TE deep over the middle.

 

Buffalo did not load up the box. Our linemen just were getting owned. I do agree though that after several failed first and second down runs, they should have started throwing earlier in the drive sooner than they did.

 

I blame the QB for that. The QB needs to check out of the run and throw. But, that's the sht that happens when you have Kenny run the team for two years and he goes down, and also you constantly want to micromanage the QB because as a coach you feel like you are the big shot and QBs are idiots.

 

I saw a post earlier where HARRIS said Buff6 had brought a safety down to help with the run. Most the gsme.. and the Steelers chose to run anyway

 

The play calling, coaches hired, and stubbornness has always been my biggest issues with Tomlin.

If Tomlin does come back, I sincerely hope he is made to hire a competent OC and let that individual have the keys to the offense.

 

The OP is true.
It was obvious:
-Bad Weather + Steelers Power Run game = Keep the game close by keeping the Bills offense off the field.
It would have been nice to line up Pickens, DJ and Austin and air one out first play.
Something to get the Bills guessing.

 

Tomlin went back to his conservative run on first down and then throw a quick pass to the outside on 3rd down to pickup the 1st down.

Gone was the aggressive play calling that Mason was allowed to run in the 1st 2 games he played. (Baltimore was a wash because of the Extreme weather) Those first games seemed like Tomlin just let them throw the ball deep because the Steelers were not making the playoffs anyway, so let Mason Air-It Out for fun, nothing to lose.

Funny, I don't remember a single deep shot at all in this game? Only Tomlin knows why he went back to Matt Canada's game plan.

 

Why can't they call a Pass Play on 1st down, like they did against the Bengals and Seahawks?

 

There was no scheme to it, the Bills front 4 on the DL was basically owning our 5.

Our line is weak sauce.

 

I didn't want to write too much on the first post, but I fully agree that the passes were also simpleton out patterns, and Buffalo just sat on them.

Rudolph sailed a few early passes on out patterns because Bills were sitting on them. The INT was a simpleton out pattern and the DB was sitting on it.

Bill came in with "if 22 is in game, load box. If 22 is not in game or empty set, protect out patterns". That pretty much was their game plan and 100% aligned with what Steelers did.

 

That's what people said in 2005 about Freeney and the other colts DL owning Steelers OL so Steelers should just hand off to the Bus...

It is the job of coaches to TRY to scheme around weakness, and then see if it works or not.

 

Whiz was literally a wizard during that entire postseason run. even with Ben's flat super bowl performance, he still was innovative enough to adjust and get the necessary big plays out of the offense.

 

Najee only had 12 rush attempts. Jaylen had 8.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of the simpleton whining though.

 

LOL. Did you watch the game and see how Steelers ended up down by so much or just look at "facts"?

 

Yes, I saw 2 turnovers be the biggest factor in The 0-21 start. Not the game plan to try and establish the run early.

This is what many here do though. Spin every loss to a justification for their hatred of Tomlin.

 

That's the exact simpleton conclusion that I'm talking about. Tomlin said the exact same thing at halftime.

"Lets establish the run until we're down by 21" is just a simpleton approach.

 

Almost makes you wonder if Canada was calling the plays again from his basement

 

Interestingly enough the Bus talks about that when Cowher finally took the chains off the offense and Whis could call what he wanted!

 

it was the typical dumb Steelers offense that I warned about last week - RUN RUN PASS. The Bills were HELL BENT on stopping the run.......andddddd they did.

We should have been throwing a lot on first down

more dumbing down of the offense, a Steelers tradition

there was NO WAY they were going to get Najee get heated up.

 

your point?

 

That mentality of we will impose our will. You can tell we were not winning the battles early and the CBS guys talked about it pre-game recognizing when to make adjustments. I felt we played scared in our play calling in the first half. That all changed likely for the worse with Pickens fumble and going down 14. The fear the game would get out of reach if we turned it over again so chains on the throwing game. With the apparent run game with Najee not going to do it we needed to shift immediately to the pass to set up the run and we waited too long.

 

There was nothing wrong with the approach. It was the obvious common sense approach that I heard every Steeler fan support before the game.

They didn’t fall behind trying to establish the run. They fell behind because of turnovers. George’s fumble led directly to Buff points and Mason’s int took points off of the Steelers board. Those 2 turnovers and giving up a 50 yard run to Allen on a 3rd and 8-9 is how they got down 21.

That you have no point.