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Brooke Pryor, ESPN Workers Author
INDIANAPOLIS — As Justin Fields took the primary snap from rookie heart Zach Frazier on Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback stumbled, tripping over Frazier’s ft and falling to the turf.
He rapidly flipped the ball to working again Najee Harris, however the Indianapolis Colts protection swallowed him up and the play went for a lack of 3 yards.
The remainder of the primary half did not go significantly better for the Steelers offense within the 27-24 loss, their first of the season. Different lowlights included a failed fourth-down conversion on the second drive and a George Pickens fumble close to the objective line within the second quarter that wiped away the staff’s most promising drive of the half.
By halftime, the Steelers trailed the Colts, who misplaced quarterback Anthony Richardson within the first quarter, 17-3, persevering with a irritating and troubling pattern of gradual begins.
Although they began off 3-0, taking part in from behind with a late-arriving offense was by no means a sustainable method for the Steelers, and Sunday that turned all of the extra apparent. To Fields, the important thing to correcting the early disjointed play can also be apparent.
“It is not a pregame routine,” Fields mentioned. “It is not doing one thing particular or consuming a unique colour Gatorade. It’s none of that. It is simply popping out first play, popping out centered, able to go.
“And we did not do this firstly. We received going as time went alongside, however it isn’t mystical. It’s efficiency on the finish of the day, and we did not come out with the best intent.”
The offense bounced again with three second-half touchdowns — matching the staff’s complete touchdowns for the primary three weeks — however in contrast to the sooner performances, the Steelers could not utterly dig out of their first-half gap and go away with a win.
“I do like how the offense fought again, and we knew we had been capturing ourselves within the foot, so it is sort of the identical story,” Fields mentioned. “So we have to simply work on that and work on not hurting ourselves and get to a sooner begin and never heat as much as issues and are available out the gate scorching.”
This was purported to be the week the Steelers mounted their gradual begins. They emphasised it in follow, preached it from podiums and in locker room scrums.
And but, when Sunday got here, the identical downside plagued the Steelers for a fourth week in a row.
The offense could not maintain drives. There have been self-inflicted wounds, this time within the type of the pricey purple zone fumble. And the run sport was utterly absent outdoors of 1 drive by Cordarrelle Patterson, who exited with an ankle damage within the second quarter.
“I do not know,” Harris mentioned, requested what’s inflicting the gradual begins. “It is simply that we simply received to execute on our behalf. They’ll come on the market on sure defenses to cease the run. We all know that we simply received to execute it. Some groups play completely different buildings on stopping it. Some guys have a free hat on sure schemes and stuff like that. We received to see that and reap the benefits of it. And second half we sort of did higher at that.”
The Steelers have trailed at halftime in three of their first 4 video games, however the offensive begins have been particularly gradual within the final two video games. The Steelers averaged 5 factors within the first half the final two video games together with 5.1 yards per play. Additionally they transformed solely 33% of third downs. However within the second halves of these video games, the Steelers averaged 17 factors, 6.1 yards per play and transformed 60% of third downs, per ESPN Analysis.
“That is the best staff sport there may be,” Fields mentioned. “So if we get all 11 guys on the offensive aspect doing their job, then we can’t be within the place we had been in, particularly after they come out in a scorching begin. We received to have the ability to reply in that method. We have to be higher on the offensive aspect of the ball early, for certain.”
On the identical time, the protection has additionally been gradual to heat as much as the motion, getting outscored 37-29 in first halves this season. Sunday’s loss was an particularly clumsy begin when Richardson hit Michael Pittman Jr. for a 32-yard achieve on the primary play of the sport. From there, the Steelers protection continued to reel, permitting back-to-back landing drives to open a sport for the primary time since a Week 8 loss to the Eagles in 2022. The passing protection additionally allowed six performs of a minimum of 15 yards, 4 within the first half. Within the first three weeks, the Steelers had allowed simply 12 such performs.
“That was one among our objectives to reduce the chunk performs, and we went on the market and we simply weren’t capitalizing — whether or not we had been being in place, we weren’t making a play on the ball,” security DeShon Elliott mentioned. “We should always take follow and convey it to the sport. We have to work just a little bit [harder] at follow for my part, however we’ll be all proper.”
Not like the primary three weeks, although, the vaunted Steelers protection was unable to gradual the Colts within the second half and allowed them to transform 53% of their third downs, almost double the Steelers’ allowed season common. So regardless of a flawed, but electrical second-half efficiency by Fields together with his three touchdowns, the Steelers could not full the comeback. However for this staff to seek out extra success this season, they’ve to seek out methods to keep away from needing comeback conditions.
“The true tangible explanation why we misplaced this sport, man, it is on us,” coach Mike Tomlin mentioned. “We had been sloppy in lots of methods. You simply do not win soccer video games versus motivated teams of their venue taking part in the way in which that we performed right this moment in sure cases.”
