Pittsburgh fans, you might want to look away.
By any measure, the Steelers’ offense has been a mess this year. But one stat in particular illustrates just how lacking in explosiveness Pittsburgh has been through the team’s first eight games.
NFL analyst Warren Sharp posted a tweet on Wednesday showing each team’s longest touchdown play of the season. The Bills have the season’s longest touchdown at 98 yards, while 22 teams have scored a touchdown of at least 50 yards so far. The Steelers? Their longest touchdown of the year has been … eight yards.
Eight. Yards.
That’s 24 feet—288 inches—for you math majors out there. The length of Pittsburgh’s longest score is less than a first down.
A reasonably successful person could afford a 24-foot boat. I could (probably) two-putt from 24 feet, and I’m a horrible putter. The point is, 24 feet is really not very far at all.
In all, the Steelers’ offense has scored 10 touchdowns in eight games this season. That memorable eight-yard score came in the team’s 17-14 Week 2 loss to the Patriots, when tight end Pat Freiermuth caught a touchdown pass from Mitchell Trubisky at the start of the fourth quarter. Four of the offense’s 10 touchdowns came from the 1-yard line.
The longest touchdown of the season for Pittsburgh was actually its first touchdown of the year—a 31-yard interception return by Minkah Fitzpatrick—which occurred less than three minutes into the season during the Steelers’ Week 1 overtime win over the Bengals. With nine games to go, the clock is ticking for Kenny Pickett and Co. to start producing some explosive plays.
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