The Steelers' offense is still far from complete, but that's where Matt Canada's machinations come in to buy time for younger players to get up to NFL speed and the old quarterback to avoid having his lack of speed be a crippling liability.
Beating the Bears, 29-27, with Ben Roethlisberger throwing only 7 of his 30 passes beyond 10 yards in the air requires creativity. Not just because defenses will start jumping underneath routes, but because it makes it that much easier to key on the team's top offensive weapon: Najee Harris.
For years, the offense was centered on how to make life easier for Roethlisberger when he was in his prime. But those days of relying on the franchise quarterback to sling the ball for 40-yard strikes several times a game for big plays are over.
Now it's about Harris, a rookie whose 830 yards from scrimmage are eighth-most in the NFL, his 398 yards after contact are sixth-most, and his 27 missed tackles forced are fifth-most in the league according to Pro Football Focus. And despite his 190 touches being the second-most in the NFL, he still hasn't fumbled.
Harris is getting that done despite defenses keying in on him on almost every snap. Teams know the Steelers want to run the ball with him, and are attacking the line of scrimmage aggressively with little fear of being hurt by Roethlisberger's arm.
That means either the Steelers' offensive line has to be very good to counter that, or Canada has to dial up other ways to beat defenses or scare them into respecting other threats. The possibility of the former would rely on two rookies in Kendrick Green and Dan Moore Jr. being more consistent as the year continues.
The possibility to the latter, has led to the Steelers' increased usage of the jet sweep. It was called upon six times for 37 yards. Three times it worked, going for 12 yards once and 11 yards twice, but on three other attempts it only averaged one yard per rush. That's a hit or miss approach, but it's a tactic that the Steelers need to buy time for other aspects of its offense to develop.
Green's made good strides to improve his blocking, as has the entire offensive line. But there's still plenty of work to do before they're a consistent unit that can be relied upon in big situations to give Harris room to be the team's gamechanger.
Two weeks ago I noted in Carter's Classroom about the importance of Green's hands when he's worked in the trenches. That weakness got exposed by the Bears several times Monday night, as you can see Harris had to jump past Green getting shoved into the Steelers' backfield on a 4th and 1:
The Steelers' opponents aren't even necessarily loading up players in the box to stop Harris, they're just keying in defenders to aggressively play the potential of him running the ball so that he can't be who hurts them.
That only happens when defenses elect not to have their players think about other threats. Sometimes it just happens in goal line situations when defenses sell out to stop the run, but the Steelers are experiencing it all over the field and it's keeping Harris from more one-on-one chances even at the line of scrimmage.
If Roethlisberger's arm won't be the solution to either back off defenders or force them to hesitate, Canada has to find another way. That's where the jet sweep can be an important wrinkle in the Steelers' offense and play off defenders who are overzealous to stop Harris, and only Harris.
The Steelers have used it for weeks as a way to catch defenses being to dedicated to stuffing Harris. Here's Eric Ebron's touchdown run on a quick handoff that goes the opposite way of Harris on the run and gave him a clear one-on-one chance at the goal line for the score. Notice how all but one player flowed down the line and no edge player to the side Ebron scored was able to help:
That's where Canada's reputation for attacking the weak spots of opponents can shine.
Even in his days as the Pitt offensive coordinator, Canada's system was aimed each week at finding the one-on-one matchups where either a speedy receiver would be in space against a slow defender, or forcing opponents to account for each gap because of the unpredictability of when a play would turn from a simple dive into a tight end running the ball off-tackle.
These days, Canada has some good athletes on the Steelers' roster to use as runners to stretch defenses. Typically that job would be on the quarterback to stretch the defense vertically, but in lieu of that ever coming to fruition for Roethlisberger, Canada has found ways to stretch defenses horizontally with the jet sweep.
Beyond just what it does to opponents, these runs also allow the Steelers' offensive line, tight ends and receivers to run and hit in space. That's a challenge they seem content to take on, as evidenced Monday night.
Watch this run off the right edge to Diontae Johnson, and how it was set up. The Steelers motioned James Washington to the right side with Chase Claypool, which allowed them to seal that sideline as the team's two more physical receivers. Claypool does a good job sealing his man and Washington found Tashaun Gipson Sr. to take him out of the play:
But it's the design of the play that did the rest. Look again at how No. 58 for the Bears, a phenomenal linebacker in Roquan Smith, was frozen during the entire play.
Normally on a play like that, a team's guard would pull and become a lead blocker. That's the key that linebackers are taught to read first to determine where the run might target. But while Smith is busy looking at the Steelers' interior offensive line zone blocking, Pat Freiermuth is has faked going to his left before going full speed to be a lead blocker for Johnson and Chukwuma Okorafor has gone with him.
There's little that Smith can do in that spot unless he starts trying to read too many other parts of the Steelers' offensive front, and doing so would risk asking a lot of even the most experienced NFL linebackers.
That element of the Steelers' offense is something they count on now to create those types of hesitation moments, and chances for big plays.
"It’s a component of what we do," Mike Tomlin when asked about the Steelers' jet sweeps Tuesday. "It works hand-in-hand. Oftentimes when it's tough sledding on the interior, there are quality opportunities on the perimeter, like I mentioned with (Eddie) Goldman and (Akiem) Hicks and others inside doing what it is that they do. It provided an opportunity for us to get some things on the perimeter. That's life. But again, that's just how we function. That's a function of what it is that we do week in and week out."
It helps that each of the Steelers' receivers are good athletes with the ball in their hands, and that the team has multiple stronger tight ends and receivers who can block in space. Watch how this time it's Washington on the jet sweep to the left side, where Freiermuth and Claypool were lined up to be the blockers in space.
Notice how Smith, again, is tasked with reading the play. This time he got a better jump on the run, but Freiermuth did a good job engaging him to protect Washington while Claypool drove his man to create the lane between them:
That's where you start to give defenses more to prepare against and think about.
The best-designed offenses are the ones that force defenses to play guessing games and their players to get caught up overthinking what's in front of them. That job's easier when you have a passing offense that forces defenses to cover the entire field, but the Steelers don't have that right now.
So this is what Canada has to do to slow down defenders for now. But it does work, and even allows Harris to occasionally get the kind of look off the threat of a jet sweep that freezes a defense even for just a second.
Here's Harris' touchdown run that opened the scoring for the Steelers Monday night, and it came just one play after Washington's jet sweep. Notice how it both Danny Trevathan (No. 6) and safety DeAndre Houston-Carson (No. 36) are too busy trying to figure out which direction the Steelers might be rushing to commit to stuffing Harris. When that happened, Harris just had to run hard and finish the play by getting to the end zone:
Those are the plays that get overlooked when evaluating the impact of Canada's jet sweeps and reverses.
It's not just about the impact of the individual plays that get receivers free rushing lanes for good gains, but also for the opportunities afforded to Harris to be the playmaker the Steelers drafted him in the first round to be in 2021.
But make no mistake, this facet of the Steelers' offense cannot be the main focus for success or a staple that is relied upon consistently in big moments to change games. It must remain a wrinkle in the team's offense that can be called upon timely to keep defenses guessing.
If Canada gets too aggressive with them, defenses will start keying on these runs and the balance that opens up chances for Harris will disappear. The Steelers still need a more consistent threat in the intermediate and deep passing game. These runs just lessen how much Roethlisberger might have to dial up the deep balls he seems reluctant to throw.