Steelers emphasizing winning on first down

[WindyCitySteel]

The players, that is - they say it's not a directive from Canada.


https://steelersdepot.com/2023/05/more-critical-this-year-george-pickens-says-steelers-have-emphasized-winning-on-first-down-in-2023/

[Northern_Blitz]

I thought that last year were were comparatively good at getting into 3rd and manageable (which I think was not the case 2 years ago). I also thought that this was fairly consistent between Mitch and KP. Just that KP converted while Mitch was trying to play hero ball.

But I might be misremembering...

[whisper]

The players, that is - they say it's not a directive from Canada.


https://steelersdepot.com/2023/05/more-critical-this-year-george-pickens-says-steelers-have-emphasized-winning-on-first-down-in-2023/

Talking about it is fine, but doing it is what really matters. Do they think all they need to do is line up in "12" formations with their large, new TE and "wammo" they will get 6-8 yards per 1st down rush? I wish it was as easy to do than say. But when we keep turning up 3rd and 8's, well then, the entire picture changes. Then all their rainbow fantasies of 2nd and 4 and 3rd and 2 come up short. What's Cool Shades gonna do then? Mr. "safe" is gonna keep running into 3rd and longs.

[LAMBERT72]

Much of our hopes this year are based on having a strong running game: more ball control time (more rested defense) and more spaces for KP... We've invested a lot to do this: first round OT, two big guards in free agency... Finger crossed.

[WindyCitySteel]

Kind of worries me that it's the players, and not the coaches, directing this. Afraid we're in for another year of living in fear of turnovers.

[NorthCoast]

Talking about it is fine, but doing it is what really matters. Do they think all they need to do is line up in "12" formations with their large, new TE and "wammo" they will get 6-8 yards per 1st down rush? I wish it was as easy to do than say. But when we keep turning up 3rd and 8's, well then, the entire picture changes. Then all their rainbow fantasies of 2nd and 4 and 3rd and 2 come up short. What's Cool Shades gonna do then? Mr. "safe" is gonna keep running into 3rd and longs.Except they didn't "keep turning up 3rd and 8's" last season. They averaged just over 5 yds to go on 3rd down. This also happened to be KP's sweet spot. I remembered watching the games late in the season thinking all they needed to do was get into 3 and 5. KP averaged 8.8 yards/att on 3rd and 5.

[NorthCoast]

Kind of worries me that it's the players, and not the coaches, directing this. Afraid we're in for another year of living in fear of turnovers.Your QB says:

“We have the guys. We gotta go execute,” Pickett said. “At some point, it’s players on players, and we gotta step up and make plays.”

[WindyCitySteel]

Your QB says:

“We have the guys. We gotta go execute,” Pickett said. “At some point, it’s players on players, and we gotta step up and make plays.”

He's a good leader and he's right to an extent, but you can't simply run into stacked boxes and throw 50-50 balls to smothered WRs and then blame the players 100% when drives end.

At some point they need to scheme up some easy wins and free yards. We've been really bad at that for years.

[whisper]

Except they didn't "keep turning up 3rd and 8's" last season. They averaged just over 5 yds to go on 3rd down. This also happened to be KP's sweet spot. I remembered watching the games late in the season thinking all they needed to do was get into 3 and 5. KP averaged 8.8 yards/att on 3rd and 5.

Well you have your stats, all sounds great. KP's 8.8 yards per attempt on 3rd and 5 sounds good. But something is amiss there. With such great 3rd and 5 stats, how did all their other offensive #s stink? We were 28th is scoring TDs, and that's _with_ the impressive 3rd and 5 #'s. 28th. I'm pretty sure being 28th in scoring TDs isn't gonna get your very far. And it didn't.

Our average points per game was 18.1 PPG. Guess where the other playoff teams were in PPG?

KC, #1, with 29.2 PPG. They won it all.
Buff. #2, with 28.4 PPG, playoff winners.
Philly, #3, 28.1, SUPER BOWL participants.
Lions, #4, 26.6, horrid D.
SF, #5, 26.5, made it to NFC championship, ran out of QBs.

You get the picture. Our 28th in TDs and 18.1 PPG is a far cry from good enough, even with a spectacular D. It's just no where close to cutting it. So, Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stat or not, we are no where close to a potent enough offense to go anywhere, piss-your-pants scared or not. I am sure Cool Shades would love to win each game 13-10, but it's not gonna happen. ALL the playoff teams dwarf our offensive production. Too bad Tomlin, if you don't feel comfortable with that.

Only 6 teams score less per game than we do. And none of them made the playoffs, not to mention win any playoff games.


https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team

I guess Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stats didn't add up to much scoring. 28th in TDs.

[NorthCoast]

Well you have your stats, all sounds great. KP's 8.8 yards per attempt on 3rd and 5 sounds good. But something is amiss there. With such great 3rd and 5 stats, how did all their other offensive #s stink? We were 28th is scoring TDs, and that's _with_ the impressive 3rd and 5 #'s. 28th. I'm pretty sure being 28th in scoring TDs isn't gonna get your very far. And it didn't.

Our average points per game was 18.1 PPG. Guess where the other playoff teams were in PPG?

KC, #1, with 29.2 PPG. They won it all.
Buff. #2, with 28.4 PPG, playoff winners.
Philly, #3, 28.1, SUPER BOWL participants.
Lions, #4, 26.6, horrid D.
SF, #5, 26.5, made it to NFC championship, ran out of QBs.

You get the picture. Our 28th in TDs and 18.1 PPG is a far cry from good enough, even with a spectacular D. It's just no where close to cutting it. So, Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stat or not, we are no where close to a potent enough offense to go anywhere, piss-your-pants scared or not. I am sure Cool Shades would love to win each game 13-10, but it's not gonna happen. ALL the playoff teams dwarf our offensive production. Too bad Tomlin, if you don't feel comfortable with that.

Only 6 teams score less per game than we do. And none of them made the playoffs, not to mention win any playoff games.


https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team

I guess Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stats didn't add up to much scoring. 28th in TDs. You brought up the 3rd down. I pointed out that they were better than you said.

It's already been brought up multiple times that KP struggled in the RZ. He needs to improve there. He has the weapons, he has the OL. Just need to 'execute' as he himself said.

[Joel Buchsbaum]

Well you have your stats, all sounds great. KP's 8.8 yards per attempt on 3rd and 5 sounds good. But something is amiss there. With such great 3rd and 5 stats, how did all their other offensive #s stink? We were 28th is scoring TDs, and that's _with_ the impressive 3rd and 5 #'s. 28th. I'm pretty sure being 28th in scoring TDs isn't gonna get your very far. And it didn't.

Our average points per game was 18.1 PPG. Guess where the other playoff teams were in PPG?

KC, #1, with 29.2 PPG. They won it all.
Buff. #2, with 28.4 PPG, playoff winners.
Philly, #3, 28.1, SUPER BOWL participants.
Lions, #4, 26.6, horrid D.
SF, #5, 26.5, made it to NFC championship, ran out of QBs.

You get the picture. Our 28th in TDs and 18.1 PPG is a far cry from good enough, even with a spectacular D. It's just no where close to cutting it. So, Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stat or not, we are no where close to a potent enough offense to go anywhere, piss-your-pants scared or not. I am sure Cool Shades would love to win each game 13-10, but it's not gonna happen. ALL the playoff teams dwarf our offensive production. Too bad Tomlin, if you don't feel comfortable with that.

Only 6 teams score less per game than we do. And none of them made the playoffs, not to mention win any playoff games.


https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team

I guess Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stats didn't add up to much scoring. 28th in TDs.

If you take away the first Cincinatti game and the Carolina game -- Turbisky starts where we scored 23 and 24, Pickett lead the offense is even lower than the teams 18.1 ponits per game. Just saying.

[WindyCitySteel]

If you take away the first Cincinatti game and the Carolina game -- Turbisky starts where we scored 23 and 24, Pickett lead the offense is even lower than the teams 18.1 ponits per game. Just saying.

Turbisky [sic] didn't "lead the offense" to 23 in Cincy, Minkah scored the first TD.

If you only count the 2nd Cincy, Cle, and Indy games, Pickett averaged 27 PPG. Am I doing it right?

[feltdizz]

Turbisky [sic] didn't "lead the offense" to 23 in Cincy, Minkah scored the first TD.

If you only count the 2nd Cincy, Cle, and Indy games, Pickett averaged 27 PPG. Am I doing it right?

Minkah and the defense did a lot in the first Cincy game.. lol.

[Captain Lemming]

Well you have your stats, all sounds great. KP's 8.8 yards per attempt on 3rd and 5 sounds good. But something is amiss there. With such great 3rd and 5 stats, how did all their other offensive #s stink? We were 28th is scoring TDs, and that's _with_ the impressive 3rd and 5 #'s. 28th. I'm pretty sure being 28th in scoring TDs isn't gonna get your very far. And it didn't.

Our average points per game was 18.1 PPG. Guess where the other playoff teams were in PPG?

KC, #1, with 29.2 PPG. They won it all.
Buff. #2, with 28.4 PPG, playoff winners.
Philly, #3, 28.1, SUPER BOWL participants.
Lions, #4, 26.6, horrid D.
SF, #5, 26.5, made it to NFC championship, ran out of QBs.

You get the picture. Our 28th in TDs and 18.1 PPG is a far cry from good enough, even with a spectacular D. It's just no where close to cutting it. So, Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stat or not, we are no where close to a potent enough offense to go anywhere, piss-your-pants scared or not. I am sure Cool Shades would love to win each game 13-10, but it's not gonna happen. ALL the playoff teams dwarf our offensive production. Too bad Tomlin, if you don't feel comfortable with that.

Only 6 teams score less per game than we do. And none of them made the playoffs, not to mention win any playoff games.


https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team

I guess Kenny's impressive 3 and 5 stats didn't add up to much scoring. 28th in TDs.

I was going to reply here but decided to start a thread about this stupid 18 points per game silliness. Look for it.

[whisper]

I was going to reply here but decided to start a thread about this stupid 18 points per game silliness. Look for it.

Yea, only scoring 18 PPG IS silly and if something radical isn't done, will be our downfall.

[NorthCoast]

Steelers were far more varied on first downs in both personnel and formations than the Bengals;

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52931665646_874ce3ae37_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oDoC5W)capture (https://flic.kr/p/2oDoC5W) by R W (https://www.flickr.com/photos/191750946@N04/), on Flickr

[Northern_Blitz]

I thought that last year were were comparatively good at getting into 3rd and manageable (which I think was not the case 2 years ago). I also thought that this was fairly consistent between Mitch and KP. Just that KP converted while Mitch was trying to play hero ball.

But I might be misremembering...

Terrible Podcast said we were stunting like 28th in the league on 1st downs.

So either I'm way of on 3rd down situations, or we had really good 2nd downs.

I'm sure the fact that we are bad at explosive plays also hurts any average we have compared to the rest of the league. Because it seems pretty rare for us to have the big plays that pull the average up (like hi is Najee's ypc is hurt by not getting the huge runs).

[Northern_Blitz]

Kind of worries me that it's the players, and not the coaches, directing this. Afraid we're in for another year of living in fear of turnovers.

I think players often parrot what the coaches say when they talk to the media.

[Northern_Blitz]

Turbisky [sic] didn't "lead the offense" to 23 in Cincy, Minkah scored the first TD.

If you only count the 2nd Cincy, Cle, and Indy games, Pickett averaged 27 PPG. Am I doing it right?

Yep

Take away the best games and they look worse.

Take away the worst games and they look better.

Remembering the DTDs is a good point too.

[Oviedo]

Yep

Take away the best games and they look worse.

Take away the worst games and they look better.

Remembering the DTDs is a good point too.

wow? statement of the obvious

doesn?t everyone look worse if you take away their best

[Blitzer]

Why worry about last year so much. rookie QB ****ty line for most of the year. weaknesses have been addressed. It must have been super hard to call any longer routes last year when you know the QB is going to get smashed in a few seconds. last year is ancient history.

[Northern_Blitz]

wow? statement of the obvious

doesn?t everyone look worse if you take away their best

This is exactly my point. Cherry picking data (in either direction) obscures reality.

[whisper]

This is exactly my point. Cherry picking data (in either direction) obscures reality.

So we have the same head coach, the same OC but none of that matters? I must be watching another league than you guys are. THE ONE I watch is heavily influenced by who the head coach and OC is.

[NorthCoast]

So we have the same head coach, the same OC but none of that matters? I must be watching another league than you guys are. THE ONE I watch is heavily influenced by who the head coach and OC is.

Really? How many playoffs has the GOAT coach won since he lost his HOF QB? Coaching matters. Players matter far more.

[hawaiiansteel]

Really? How many playoffs has the GOAT coach won since he lost his HOF QB? Coaching matters. Players matter far more.

I couldn't possibly agree more.

$$$$ post.

[Blitzer]

Really? How many playoffs has the GOAT coach won since he lost his HOF QB? Coaching matters. Players matter far more.

100% agree. except the part that he is the GOAT coach. he is the * coach.

[feltdizz]

Really? How many playoffs has the GOAT coach won since he lost his HOF QB? Coaching matters. Players matter far more.

get the banjo out!!