Behind the Steel Curtain
The Steelers are now 1-13 all-time in Chicago following Sunday’s 31-28 loss to the Bears. As always, there are plenty of takeaways to be had.
Outside of an early Mason Rudolph interception, the Steelers offense was largely efficient in the first half. The run game was churning out chunk gains, and the passing game kept finding success in the screen game.
Down their top three linebackers, the Bears had a clear weakness on defense. Like last week against an inexperienced Cincinnati linebacker core, Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith tested the opponent’s sideline-to-sideline range with plenty of short passes in the flats. He also added more creativity than usual to his run game, with plenty of varying concepts and misdirection.
Smith’s best moment of the afternoon was a fake tush push on a fourth and short that turned into Pittsburgh’s biggest play of the game.
The Steelers finished the day with 186 rushing yards. Kenneth Gainwell and Jaylen Warren looked great.
But in the second half, the Steelers offense stalled in a big way. In the third quarter, Pittsburgh punted twice and fumbled once on just 11 offensive plays. As the adage goes, the other guys are paid too, and Chicago figured out the perimeter runs and started to tighten up defensively.
But the Steelers didn’t have an answer offensively. The deep ball, even with Mason Rudolph at quarterback, remained nonexistent. And despite Chicago’s secondary and linebacker woes, Pittsburgh still failed to threaten the intermediate middle of the field.
Play calling and execution faltered down the stretch. The Steelers had two shots at a game-winning, or tying, drive, and both failed. On the first, Mason Rudolph converted a big third down, but it was called back for an illegal formation penalty that the drive never recovered from.
On the second attempt to get into field goal range, Rudolph’s final two completions of the game were for two yards each, with the latter staying in-bounds — with no timeouts and under 40 seconds remaining.
As a result, the Steelers forced themselves into a hurried, must-have fourth and six situation that went about as well as you’d expect.
Pittsburgh only put up 21 points offensively on Sunday against a Bears defense that was in the bottom quarter of the league in most metrics. Sure, the Steelers had their backup quarterback starting, but that’s still a poor mark given the number of injuries Chicago was dealing with.
Sunday’s loss — once again — revealed the lack of talent on this Pittsburgh offense. And it wasn’t a great look for Arthur Smith and Mike Tomlin’s in-game adjustments, either.
The number of Mason Rudolph versus Aaron Rodgers takes I saw before, during, and after the Bears game was and continues to be ridiculous. I just don’t think it makes that much of a difference.
Let’s start with the game itself. Rudolph went 24/31 for 171...
