Mike Tomlin, Ben Roethlisberger unconcerned about Steelers’ recent rushing woes

None of the other 31 NFL teams has a better record than the Pittsburgh Steelers. But 23 of them average more rushing yards per game, and 26 average more yards per carry.

For the offense of a 9-0 team that has averaged 30.1 points per game (tied for fourth most in the NFL), the problems in the run game haven’t proved catastrophic yet.

“I think you have to be able to do it when you need to do it,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said after Sunday’s 36-10 win against the Cincinnati Bengals in which the Steelers had just 44 rushing yards on 20 carries. “Obviously, we didn’t run the ball well today, but we did other things well. We put points on the board. We scored when we needed to score. We converted when we had to do that.

“So, we shouldn’t get so caught up in yards per carry or total yards rushing or things like that because really it comes down to winning the football game first, which we did, and everything kind of falls into place from there.”

Columnist @MarkMaddenX: Do the Steelers need to run the ball? Not so far.
But that could change come playoff time. https://t.co/wNUUmBG7Bo

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) November 16, 2020

The Steelers averaged 136.8 rushing yards per game through five weeks, with a 100-yard individual rusher in four of those five games. But over the past three games, Steelers barely have topped that former average in total: 138 combined.

They are averaging 2.6 yards per carry in that time after they averaged 4.4 over the first four games.

Still, the Steelers won all three of those games and averaged more than 29 points while doing it.

“We’re a balanced group,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “We can to give it to you however you want it. If you want to pack a bunch on the line of scrimmage, we’re going to throw it. You play two high safeties, we’re capable of running it. That’s what I mean when I say we strive to be a balanced group. We want to be able to move it however, however we choose, or maybe over commitments and so forth from defenses that dictate it, we’re OK with that too.”

Pro Football Focus ranks the Steelers as the NFL’s fifth-worst rated rushing offense, in large part by what it judges to be the league’s second-worst run-blocking. Among the 21 running backs with at least 100 carries this season, PFF rates James Conner 12th.

Using their proprietary DVOA metric, footballoutsiders.com pegs the Steelers’ rushing offense 22nd among the NFL’s 32 teams. It does, though, put Conner 13th among individual running backs.

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