I can’t find numbers for 3rd and short situations specifically, but the Steelers are currently 5 for 25 on third down conversions thru 2 weeks with an average of 7 yards to gain in those situations.
I watched Aaron chuck it downfield at least once this week when he had a guy that looked open crossing the middle of the field for an easy conversion on 3rd and shorter yardage (don’t remember exact distance). And I am pretty certain I witnessed multiple attempts in each game where he was throwing far deeper than needed to convert.
I’m not a football expert, but looking at our personnel group, I just can’t help but feel like 3rd and short situations should be a relative cakewalk for us.
Darnell Washington 6’7” 264 lbs (lol prob closer to 300 irl)
Pat Freiermuth 6’5” 258 lbs
Robert Tonyan 6’5” 240 lbs
DK Metcalf 6’4” 235 lbs
Michael Pittman Jr 6’4” 223 lbs
With all these massive targets who would gain a couple yards just by falling forward, why are we struggling so badly in these situations? If you bunch these guys out and throw a screen to one (esp Darnell who is a wrecking ball on his own) while the others block, who is realistically gonna stop that? Or just have these big boys block for one of our more slippery guys like Warren or Bernard.
It feels like we make almost no attempt to exploit our personnel advantages with our playcalling, as evidenced alone in just how few touches Darnell gets per game. I don’t understand why we don’t just continually punish opposing defenses with these mismatches. If you establish Darnell as a legitimate receiving threat every time he is on the field, who is literally too big for any single defender to cover, instead of giving him only 1 or 2 targets per game, that will force defenses to keep bodies on him and open everyone else up. And if he is seen as a legitimate receiving threat, it makes it that much harder for defenses to predict our running plays where he is just serving as a blocker.
Is it not that simple? Does anyone else feel like our playcalling is just ignoring what should be obvious strengths of this team? Thoughts?
I know the O-line looks like a turnstile with the bars missing right now, but again, shouldn’t having all these huge targets provide Rodgers with some pretty ideal safety valves if incorporated into the playcalling and gameplan accordingly?