The Steelers’ offense is already getting a hard reset after two ugly weeks, and the message from Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy is lining up: simplify it, trim it, and get cleaner fast.
Rodgers didn’t hide from the mess after the loss, saying the group has to be sharper in-game and that the communication between him and the staff needs to improve.
“In a game like today where there wasn’t a lot of flow to it, we need to be better,” Rodgers said via Pro Football Talk. “And that starts with me at like making sure Mike knows what’s working, what’s not working, our coaches know, and - so we can call stuff that we feel like has a better chance.”
He also made it clear the answer may be a lighter load.
“If there’s too much stuff in the plan, we’ve got to cut it back,” Rodgers added. “I’m always liking to push the envelope, and if I see guys doing it the right way in practice, then I feel good about it, but we’ve got to transfer the practice to the game obviously and the details gotta come with it.”
McCarthy was right there with him. The Steelers coach said the offense has been bogged down by volume and lack of cleanliness, and he pointed to the need for better structure around Rodgers.
“We’ve got to look at the volume,” McCarthy said. “That’s Marty Schottenheimer, that was his thing.
It was a great lesson for a young coach to learn, and here I am some old bastard that didn’t do it this week. If it’s not clean, you cut the volume down, and we’re not clean on offense.
“So the volume is getting cut down. That’s the first starting point, and that’s my fault.
I felt it earlier in the week. We’ve got a quarterback that could play at any volume of game plan, but at the end of the day, it’s a team game.
We’ve got to give Aaron better platforms to throw off of and have the opportunities because I don’t want to dink and dunk and play all day and play keep-away football.”
McCarthy also said the offensive line shuffling has hurt the unit through the first two games. He said the constant changes have kept the group from settling in and building the kind of rhythm it needs.
“I think in hindsight you go back and you look how many days did we line up with the same offensive line? We worked a lot of different combinations.
No excuses, but they need continuity. They need reps, they need consistency.
So the consistency will come through the common concepts. … our consistency starting up front, we need to give our guys more laps, more time on task and make sure we’re asking them to do things that they got plenty of reps in.”
There’s also a question mark at receiver. McCarthy said Michael Pittman’s foot injury is not the same one he dealt with in training camp, but his Week 3 status is still up in the air even after some positive progress.
Across the division, Baltimore had its own injury and turnover chatter. Jesse Minter said Derrick Henry was “was himself most of the game,” while acknowledging that players can work through in-game ailments.
Rashod Bateman also pushed back on the idea that the late game-sealing interception against the Saints came from a route mix-up.
“No miscommunication at all. Ran the right route, looked up, the ball was what it was.”
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