Tim Benz: If Mike Tomlin wants more possession-down success, give the offense more to work with in Detroit

After both of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ preseason losses so far in 2024, head coach Mike Tomlin has appropriately bemoaned his offense’s inability to convert on possession downs.

Over the first eight quarters of the preseason, the Steelers’ offense has only converted six times on 26 third-and-fourth-down opportunities.

That stat is easily brushed off because (say it with me) “it’s only preseason,” and “the final score doesn’t matter.”

The offenses are vanilla. A minimal amount of the playbook is being called.

However, if Tomlin wants to get his two new quarterbacks (Russell Wilson and Justin Fields) extended time in live fire — with a batch of new receivers, a bushel of rookie offensive linemen and an entirely revamped receiving depth chart — it behooves the club to extend a few drives instead of going off the field so quickly.

“If you are in third downs, you want to be in third and manageable situations,” tackle Dan Moore Jr. said this week. “Shooting ourselves in the foot, we’ve got to stop doing that. False starts, holding calls and stuff like that. That way, we can stay on schedule and be the offense that we want to be. I don’t think it’s showing more. I think it is emphasizing execution.”

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In the first half of the 9-3 loss to Buffalo on Saturday, the Steelers were unable to convert on six of seven third downs. Three of those failed attempts were actually completed passes that came up short of the first down marker. A fourth time, quarterback Justin Fields bounced an incompletion toward Aaron Shampklin, who was well short of the line to gain.

For a minute, I was wondering if someone at Acrisure Stadium had forgotten to deactivate Matt Canada’s keycard, and he had managed to sneak his way back into the coach’s booth. It appeared that “#ShortOfTheSticks” was alive and well in Pittsburgh even if Canada had been fired as offensive coordinator in the middle of last season.

No, this is Arthur Smith’s offense now. As Moore said, Tomlin insists his priority is not about incorporating a broader menu of plays into the preseason to extend drives. Rather, it’s about doing the basics better.

“It’s not about the volume of schematics. It’s about the quality of execution, and our understanding of what we’re seeing, and us playing full speed in those moments. So, it’s less about what we show from a schematics standpoint, and just us getting individually and collectively familiar with the moments and winning in those moments,” Tomlin said.

Fair enough. But what’s the broader goal in these three preseason weeks of drudgery? Is it to get a new set of quarterbacks — one of whom has been limited by injury in training camp — a chance for as many live snaps as possible?

Or are we just doing a three-hour song and dance by not showing the full deck of cards in case (God forbid) the Baltimore Ravens may recognize a rub-route that’s run in August when the teams finally meet for the first time in November?

“I think when you get into it, everybody’s got different philosophies. Some people are pretty vanilla,” offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said this week. “You hear, ‘Oh, we’re not going to show anything,’ but we’ve got to execute. No matter what is called. We’ve got to block, and we’ve got to execute. We’ve got to be at the right depths and all that stuff and rhythm — but there’s definitely more of an urgency.”

Yeah. I’d be “urgent” Saturday in Detroit for the preseason finale. I’d make staying on the field and sustaining drives a point of emphasis so that Wilson can work with the first-team offense as long as humanly possible and that Fields can just get as many reps as humanly possible for his own good.

Forget hiding the playbook or keeping it bland. That’s worrying about the 14 other coaching staffs you are going to face over the next five months. A million things are going to change between now and then.

This time of year, football coaches, by nature, love to default to quotes about “just working on ourselves” and not worrying about game planning because “our own results are what matters in the preseason.”

Well, in the case of this offense, it needs more opportunities to succeed. The franchise has 60 more minutes to exploit that opportunity free of consequence in Detroit on Saturday.

Here’s to hoping they fully embrace it.

LISTEN: Tim Benz and “Locked on Lions Podcast” host Matt Dery discuss the upcoming Steelers-Lions preseason game, Cam Sutton, potential WR cuts, and tests for Broderick Jones.