Watching the Steelers this season produced a plethora of mixed messages and conflicting emotions. It was exciting to see both quarterbacks play at first, because we as fans did not know what to expect for the first time in years. As the starts added up for both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson, the excitement wore off, as both the Steelers faithful and the opposing teams figured out exactly what was coming. Instead of expanding the playbook as each player gained experience in the system, the scope of plays seemed to narrow. Conservative play call ruled the day, and the season fizzled out with a whimper instead of a bang.

Now comes the news that the one game against the Bengals when the Steelers offense actually opened up and let it rip caused problems between Russell Wilson and Arthur Smith, which by way of proxy, I would also assume to mean Mike Tomlin. That is beyond frustrating to hear, yet it explains so much. The game plan the next time the two teams played, for instance, where the Steelers game plan was to try not throwing the ball at all if they could get away with it. Even the ghost of Vince Lombardi was thinking “Fellas, you need to throw it on first down every once in a while.”

Checking some numbers on the offense, the Steelers averaged 192 passing yards a game, only 27th in the league. That’s not great. What’s even worse, the Steelers ran into a stacked box just a touch over 25%, putting them eighth worse on that list. They sit at number four on rushing attempts in the NFL, yet they weren’t all that good at it. With more than five yards to gain, what did they do? You guessed it, they ran the ball. Only the Packers did it more, and that was because they had Malik Willis start some games where they never ran the ball. And if you remember seeing a ton of failed fourth and short attempts, that is not your imagination. Only Dallas was worse at picking up fourth downs than the Steelers last year.

Not to say that having a run first philosophy is wrong…the Ravens excelled at it and the Eagles are playing in the Super Bowl because of it. The difference is that those teams were good at it, because they designed plays that used the players strengths to their advantage. The Steelers, however, kept insisting on running the toss stretch to Najee Harris on first down, when he clearly was much more suited to inside power. It was almost as if first downs were a give up play.

Looking at those terrible bottom of the barrel rankings and then learning that the coaching staff was upset when the quarterback audibled out of a running play seems to confirm all of our worst suspicions about this organization. They would rather run into the stacked box and slam against the brick wall over and over instead of taking the risk of putting the ball in the air. There was a time, back when Jerome Bettis was running behind a great line and fullback, when everyone knew it was a run play, they needed two yards, and he would get you three. That is not this team.

After the way that the season ended, we as fans expected some type of coaching changes. We all knew better than to expect major upheaval, but perhaps some position coaches would be changed, or at least added to in order to bring in some fresh ideas and help with workload. That didn’t happen. It seems that this organization prefers to run into the stacked box in the offseason as much as they like to in-game.

The Steelers have had worse seasons in the past than they did this year. They won ten games against a difficult schedule, made the playoffs, and were in contention for the AFC North late into the season. For some reason, though, it feels like there is less hope and optimism now than there has been after experiencing a  losing, non-playoff season. For all we know, there could be a complete overhaul of the quarterback room again, and they might actually bring in a real wide receiver this time around instead of a bunch of depth pieces past their prime. The thing is, do any of us have any confidence that they would actually use them? This is not high school football. If the coaching staff puts the clamps on any audibles or options to change out of an obvious run blitz overload, what real change will the fans see?

I’ve been telling myself that it’s time to let go of last season and start getting excited about the prospect of new faces arriving along with new strategies being implemented, but the news this week has me right back where we left off, running head first into that same damn brick wall again. I will be watching and rooting for the players that I respect that make this team what it is, as all of the Steel Curtain Network family here always does, but I have no faith that next year will bring anything different than what we saw game after game last season. Last season we were promised change and ended up with the same old Steelers. Now it’s the Steelers fans that are being forced to rush into a stacked box. So far this offseason, Art Rooney II and Mike Tomlin seem to be doubling down on a repeat, and unfortunately for us, that would not be surprising at all.