Tight ends are big part of passing plans
Ebron brought in for his receiving prowess
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin usually makes his way over to watch the tight ends during the early portion of practice each day. But he doesn’t go to watch his them run routes or catch balls off the JUGS machine. He goes to watch them hit a blocking sled. Over and over and over again. That’s certainly something new for Eric Ebron, the new Steelers tight end who never hit a blocking sled once in his two seasons with the Indianapolis Colts. But since arriving in Pittsburgh, he’s discovered it’s a staple every day for the Steelers in training camp thanks to longtime tight ends coach James Daniel.
“You usually don’t hit a sled anymore [in the NFL],” Ebron said, laughing. “I think they kind of get rid of that in college. It’s just something that you don’t do often. You think you’d get rid of it when you get to the NFL, but I guess not. J.D. is my coach, and he’s been here longer than most people.”
If Ebron can get in the way of a defender occasionally, Daniel and the Steelers will be happy. They didn’t sign him to transform their running game.
The Steelers signed Ebron to transform their passing game that plummeted toward the bottom of the NFL’s rankings last season.
It started with a putrid performance in New England with their franchise quarterback behind center and ended in Baltimore with an undrafted free agent managing all of 95 passing yards in a driving rainstorm. In between, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to like, either.
The Steelers finished the season 31st in the league in passing, averaging just 186 yards per game.
Much of the blame for the offensive woes was pinned on the quarterbacks after Ben Roethlisberger was
injured. And the criticism was justified at times when Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges endured their fair share of struggles.
But there was much more to the downturn, and the receivers being easily covered by opposing defensive backfields was one of them.
That’s where Ebron’s presence should help.
The No. 10 overall pick of the 2014 draft, the 6-foot-4, 253pound Ebron is a threat defenses have to account for. With the Colts in 2018, he had 66 catches for 750 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Having that type of player at Roethlisberger’s disposal should open things back up for a receiving corps that fell on hard times last season.
“I’m just here to be another chess piece,” Ebron said Sunday afternoon. “It’s easy to cover our receivers if you don’t have to really pay attention to anyone else. You can just play two-high [safeties] and cover both of our outside receivers. I feel like I pose a threat in the middle of the field that will help our receivers get one-on-one coverage. And hopefully they win.”
Since Ebron was signed in March, it has been framed as an acquisition to Roethlisberger’s arsenal. Another way to look at it is an acquisition to help a young receiving corps.
The 735 yards James Washington produced last season were the fewest for the Steelers’ top receiver since Bobby Shaw and Hines Ward tied for the team lead with 672 during the 2000 season.
Shaw, infamously, lifted his No. 82 jersey to expose a Super Man T-shirt after scoring a touchdown late in a 4736 loss to the Titans at Three Rivers Stadium a year earlier. That wasn’t a super era for Steelers receivers and neither was 2019.
The trio of Washington, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson combined for just 1,967 yards, and it was the first time since the 2012 season the Steelers did not have a 1,000-yard receiver.
Ebron’s addition could mean fewer snaps for Steelers wide receivers overall, but it just might mean bigger numbers in the end.
The Steelers are looking to pair Ebron with veteran Vance McDonald and run plenty of two tight end sets. The idea behind running “12” personnel — the NFL term for two tight ends and one running back formations — is versatility in play-calling and numerous available checks by the quarterback at the line of scrimmage.
Teams can align their tight ends at the end of the line of scrimmage and appear in a run-heavy formation only to split out one or both tight ends and quickly transform into a passing formation. It also keeps defenses honest because they can’t put extra defensive backs on the field when two tight ends are in the game — not unless they want to be susceptible to being hurt in the run game.
“It solves the problem we have every snap: What is the defense trying to disguise, and how are they trying to disguise it?” Ebron said. “With a veteran quarterback like Ben who has seen it all, it helps with his clarity. Two tight ends sets are dominant if you have two really good tight ends, and I believe we do. I look forward to making Ben’s job a lot easier and just pulling the truth out of the defenses and what they’re trying to disguise.”
The Steelers are expected to operate heavily out of “12” personnel, but McDonald said opponents shouldn’t sleep on the Steelers other receivers. He believes any struggles they endured in 2019 are going to be shortlived.
“In the eighth year of my career, I’ve been around a lot of receivers,” McDonald said. “You end up seeing a ton – a ton of talent, a ton of potential. When I just look at our receiver room, it’s crazy.
“JuJu, to me, is always young JuJu, but at the same time, he’s not young anymore. In fact, he’s the veteran of the room. You just see guys, JuJu, Diontae, James, [Ryan Switzer]. It’s just like it’s crazy. They all have their niches. They all have their things that they excel at.”
And the hope is they will be able to excel more often this season with Ebron in the offensive mix.
NOTE: The six players who were held out of practice Saturday night due to NFL COVID-19 protocols took part in team meetings Sunday and will return to practice Monday. They were some of the many NFL players who received false-positive COVID-19 tests over the weekend.