Category: 2023 Steelers Season Week 4

Can we just say that we love retired Ben Roethlisberger? Big Ben isn’t shy about speaking his mind about the team now that he’s hung up his cleats and has turned his attention to his Footbahlin’ with Ben Roethlisberger podcast. In his latest episode, Roethlisberger reacted to the Steelers blowout loss to the Houston Texans and Big Ben didn’t hold back on his disapproval with the questionable fourth-down call that quarterback Kenny Pickett was injured on.

“You’re telling me you can’t get your running back that one foot,” Roethlisberger wondered. “That push play is batting 1.000 right now. Put big Naj back behind you and just push. That play is going to be talked about for a week at least. And your quarterback got hurt, it’s not even negative, it’s above negative.”

The play call itself was absolutely ridiculous. And it has put the bullseye squarely on offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s chest again this week. But as Roethlisberger astutely pointed out, this extends beyond just Canada.

Pittsburgh called the play out of a timeout and as Roethlisberger said, if that was the case, the play had to run through Tomlin and he was okay with it. After the game, Tomlin explained the call by saying the loss of left tackle Dan Moore and tight end Pat Freiermuth impacted the decision not to run, even though the team had been running the football well.

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Well, there is your big change, folks. Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the media after Sunday’s loss to the Houston Texans and was definitive that there would be changes this week. The fans want Tomlin to fire offensive coordinator Matt Canada but it looks like the best they will get is the Steelers practicing in pads on Wednesday.

Tomlin blamed the loss against the Texans on a lack of physicality and effort by the Steelers. Both of those things are absolutely true. But I’m not sure one practice in pads is going to fix that.

After the game, quarterback Mitch Trubisky said the team needs to play with more hearts. It really showed on the field on Sunday that at times, the team just gave up on plays. This happened often last week and has been an ongoing problem. Is putting on shoulder pads going to suddenly inspire the team to play harder?

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Injuries weren’t kind to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. The Steelers not only lost 30-6 but lost multiple starters to injury as well. We will have more information when head coach Mike Tomlin addresses the media on Tuesday but here is what we know as of now.

On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers offense once again failed to get on track, this time against the Houston Texans. Pittsburgh lost to the Texans 30-6. Despite rushing for 114 yards, the run game was grossly inconsistent. After the game, center Mason Cole had some insight about it.

When Cole was asked about the problems with the run game, he noted that the team would have some success running the ball, but as soon as they got stopped, they seemed scared to stick to the run.

“There’s times we’re running the ball really well, then one bad or negative run will scare us away from it,” Cole said after the game.

Who was scared? When we first heard the comment, we wondered if he was talking about offensive coordinator Matt Canada. But maybe he was talking about himself and his teammates. It really felt like Pittsburgh was playing without any real drive or heart. There was very little second effort, and that was giving them the benefit of the doubt that the team gave that initial effort.

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On Sunday, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett went down with what looked like a nasty knee injury in the Steelers 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans. We will know more on Tuesday after more testing is done but early reports center on it being an MCL sprain.

Here are four things this injury could mean for the Steelers this season.

The Pittsburgh Steelers offense was supposed to be better. Another year in the system for guys like quarterback Kenny Pickett and wide receiver George Pickens along with the changes along the offensive meant the offense would finally start to pull its weight. Right?

Maybe not. Last season, the Steelers offense was the worst in the league in touchdowns scored with only 27. Sounds pretty awful right? Well, that’s nothing compared to the pace the Steelers are on after four games.

If things stay as they are, the Steelers offense this season will only get 17 offensive touchdowns. That number is as bad as it sounds in a historical context. Even in 2019, when Ben Roethlisberger was lost for almost the entire season, was able to score 25 offensive touchdowns.

There is no time to sit around and feel sorry for yourself. Pittsburgh has to figure out a way to get this right enough to compete with the 3-1 Baltimore Ravens this week.

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