Aaron Rodgers Is 0-for-9 Throwing Deep. He and Mike McCarthy Do Not Agree on Why.
The quarterback says the playcalls need to change. The head coach says he needs better platforms to throw from. Both were speaking about the same two games.
Two games into the season, Pittsburgh has not completed a single pass traveling twenty or more yards in the air. Aaron Rodgers is 0-for-9 on those attempts, and no quarterback in the league has thrown more of them without connecting once. That is an unusual sort of statistic, because it does not describe a player who has stopped trying. Nine attempts is a real number of attempts. Something is happening between the decision to throw deep and the ball arriving, and the two men most responsible for the Steelers offense have publicly located that something in different places.
Useful next steps
Rodgers went first, and he did it in the careful register quarterbacks use when they are criticizing a playcaller without wanting the headline. He framed it as shared ownership, put himself at the front of the sentence, and then said the thing anyway. Mike McCarthy's answer agreed that the downfield passing game is supposed to exist and then pointed the fix somewhere else entirely. Neither man contradicted the other on the diagnosis that the offense is broken. They contradicted each other on who is supposed to fix it.
The best teams are player-led teams. We have to keep taking the ownership. In a game like today, where there wasn't a lot of flow to it, we need to be better — and it starts with me — at, like, making sure Mike knows what's working, what's not working, so we can call stuff that we feel like has a better chance.— Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, speaking to reporters (via Heavy.com, Sept 21)
McCarthy's position is that the philosophy was never the problem. "I don't want to dink and dunk and play keep-away football," he told reporters. "There's a place for that, maybe situationally, but that's not the philosophy. We have to attempt to get the ball thrown downfield." In the same remarks he moved the responsibility back across the line of scrimmage: "It's a team game. We've got to give Aaron better platforms to throw off of and have the opportunities." That is a coach saying the calls are already there and the protection is not, which is close to the exact inverse of what his quarterback had said. The supporting numbers do lean his way. Under pressure across the two games Rodgers has completed 33 percent of his throws at 3.5 yards per attempt, and under that same pressure against New England he was 5-of-12 for 34 yards while taking four sacks. A forty-two-year-old passer being hit that often is not choosing to check the ball down.
Two explanations, one offense
Rodgers is 0-for-9 on passes of 20+ air yards through two games — the most such attempts by any quarterback without a completion.
Wants the playcalls adjusted: make sure the coach knows "what's working, what's not working."
Says the philosophy already calls for it: "We have to attempt to get the ball thrown downfield."
"We've got to give Aaron better platforms to throw off of."
16 points across two games on offense only. Team totals are 20 and 3; the difference is T.J. Watt's 35-yard pick-six in Week 1.
33% completion rate, 3.5 yards per attempt.
The context that makes this more than a squabble is how far the offense has actually fallen. Writing for The Athletic and quoted by Heavy, Mike Sando noted that Cleveland ranks ahead of Pittsburgh in expected points added per play, twenty-sixth to thirty-first, and that the Browns scored more points in one win over Tampa Bay than the Steelers have managed on offense across two games. That second figure needs stating precisely, because it is the kind of number that gets garbled: sixteen is Pittsburgh's offensive output only. The team's actual totals are twenty and three, and the gap is a thirty-five-yard T.J. Watt pick-six in the opener, the first of his career. Strip the defense's contribution out and the offense has produced thirteen points in one game and three in another. The uncomfortable reading for both men is that a disagreement this public, this early, is usually a symptom rather than a strategy — and the schedule is not going to wait for them to settle it.
Nine deep attempts and no completions is not yet a verdict on anyone. The tenth one, and who gets blamed for it, will tell you more than either press conference did.
The Argument, Weighed
Nine deep attempts is evidence the intent exists. If the scheme were purely conservative, those throws would not be called at all.
Four sacks and a 33 percent completion rate under pressure. A quarterback hit that frequently is not declining to push the ball downfield by choice.
The first completed deep ball. If it arrives off a play that looks like the ones already being called, the protection was the problem. If it needs a new concept, Rodgers was right.
Around the site
Sources: Heavy.com — Reality check on the Steelers offense, Sportsnet Pittsburgh — Offensive struggles, Rodgers and the deep ball, Steelers Now — Steelers' deep passing game nonexistent through two weeks, Steelers.com — Steelers top Falcons 20-13 in the season opener