Offensive line needs new mindset

The Steelers have a new offensive coordinator and now a new offensive line coach. In a few months, they’ll have a new starting running back.

These are just a few of the changes implemented by coach Mike Tomlin and team president Art Rooney II, who said last week the Steelers have to be more committed to the running game. Of course, Steelers fans who follow Rooney’s annual state-of-the-Steelers addresses know that’s a familiar refrain. However, this is one of the few times he has followed through with action.

Improving a running game that finished last in the NFL last season and hasn’t been effective since 2017 will take much more. Personnel changes on the offensive line are coming, but one of new offensive line coach Adrian Klemm’s biggest challenges will be changing the way his players view the running game.

Offensive line play at its

essence is about a mentality. Joe Moore, the godfather of offensive line coaches, said it best: “There is no greater joy in life than moving a man from point A to point B against his will.” Former Steelers offensive line coach Russ Grimm referenced this famous quote in his enshrinement speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Steelers linemen definitely had that mentality under Grimm. They’ve had it at various times under Tomlin’s various line coaches, but they have slowly lost their edge in recent years. They need to regain that edge, develop a new identity and, most important, they need the linemen to buy in.

In December, ESPN’s Booger McFarland called the Steelers’ offensive line “soft.”

“The offensive line has been playing terrible. They’re soft,” said McFarland, a defensive lineman in the NFL from 1999-2007. “People talk about running the football. You can’t run the football if you get no movement. You watch the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line play, [and] they’re in twopoint stances. They’re backpedaling, passing off games all day. Nobody’s coming off hitting anyone in the mouth.”

The Steelers, notably center Maurkice Pouncey, took exception to McFarland’s comments, but they didn’t come out of nowhere. Tomlin bemoaned the offense’s lack of physicality last season and former offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner did, too.

It’s hard to develop a running mentality when the linemen are in two-point stances all the time.

The Steelers threw the ball 65.5% of the time, the secondmost unbalanced offense in the league last season. Only the one-win Jaguars threw it more. The Steelers threw it 76.5% of the time over the final three games of the season.

In 2018, it was even worse. The Steelers threw it 67.3% of the time. In 2019, when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was on injured reserve, the Steelers threw it 57.3% of the time.

The Steelers have become so accustomed to throwing the ball that it’s conditioned their linemen to believe the run game is secondary.

“You guys love talking about the running game like it’s the starting point of the offense,” veteran right guard David DeCastro said in August in response to a question about the struggles the Steelers had endured in the run game.

At one time or another over the past few years, all of DeCastro’s linemates have offered similar comments.

Take Pouncey’s response when he was asked about the lack of physicality by the line late in the season.

“Maybe just get a little stronger in the weight room,” was his flippant response before adding: “We have to lock on blocks better. We have to be able to double-team guys. You have to get on guys and actually hit the right holes. There are a lot of things that play into it.”

It wasn’t always this way. The Steelers used to be known for their physical brand of football in the last decade, and Pouncey and DeCastro led the way.

“You know what his nickname is?” Pouncey said of DeCastro after a 2014 game against Carolina in which the Steelers rushed for 264 yards. “It’s [butt] kicker. That’s what he did in that game. He kicked [butt].”

The Steelers can use some butt kickers now. With Alejandro Villanueva set to become a free agent, the Steelers will have a new left tackle next season. Pouncey is reportedly leaning toward retirement, and other changes could be afoot.

Klemm’s personnel most certainly will be different, but changing the mindset of the players that remain should be job No. 1 for him.