Pat Freiermuth admits Steelers didn't have hot routes built into offense

[pczach]

Pat Freiermuth Admits Steelers Didn't Have Hot Routes Built into Offense

By Alex Kozora


To get an idea of how simplified the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense was in its first year without Ben Roethlisberger, the offense didn't have hot routes. And that's not hyperbole. It's what TE Pat Freiermuth revealed during last week's live show of Ben Roethlisberger's Footbahlin' podcast, noting the offense lacked the checks they had under Roethlisberger.

Freiermuth served as one of Roethlisberger's guests on a special live show and asked how the offense changed going from Roethlisberger to Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett.

"I tell Kenny this all the time. It's so different because we didn't have hots. With you, how many times did we have a concept and you looked at [WR Diontae Johnson] and give a signal and it'd be a 12-yard completion. We didn't have that this year."

Read the rest of the article here: https://steelersdepot.com/2023/01/pa...-into-offense/

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It's what I was saying all year long. It was obvious to me that the offense would be stuck in bad plays because the quarterback wasn't given the power to change things at the LOS to get out of a bad play or allowed to check to hot routes with a signal so the defense couldn't make a change before the snap.

Pretty fucking sad.

[Rotorhead]

But we kept the OC “cause the offense for better” towards the end of the season. This team is screwed for another season by that dumbass

[polamalubeast]

Yeah,this is so sad and very frustrating

[86WARD]

We’ve known this for a couple years now. It’s a high school offense. Multiple main players have confirmed. EVERY NFL offense has hot routes built in…lol. It’s crazy that a head coach will “approve” something like this…unbelievable.

[polamalubeast]

We’ve known this for a couple years now. It’s a high school offense. Multiple main players have confirmed. EVERY NFL offense has hot routes built in…lol. It’s crazy that a head coach will “approve” something like this…unbelievable.

Tomlin love the low scoring game way too much!

[86WARD]

Tomlin love the low scoring game way too much!

Yeah…that’s a bizarre thing to say and feel…

[Mojouw]

Reportedly Tomlin enforced a simplified offense so all these morons on offense could actually run it.
Reportedly Tomlin was the brains behind the off-season QB "competition" that anointed Mitch T the starter.
Reportedly Tomlin pushed to draft KP because he was all the way pro-ready and had his NFL rookie year his last season in college.

Maybe Tomlin doesn't know much about QB's?

In all honestly, there has been a series of dumb decisions regarding the QB transition from Ben R to whoever was next. The vet bridge to nowhere that stole snaps from the off-season preparation of the highly drafted rookie QB. The unwillingness of the coaching staff to adjust their offensive approach to whatever it is that KP does well. And all of these are somewhat self-inflicted wounds. All this team has to do is look around the league and see how other teams with QB transitions are handling it and take what works and leave behind what clearly does not. They refuse to do that and it drives me up a wall.

Also....if the morons on offense couldn't handle hots and checks....doesn't Tomlin "run towards coaching"?

You all know I am not a people should be fired and seem like they are bad at their jobs guy...but this is getting ridiculous. Coach better. Seriously. That is the answer. The cherry on top of all this is that Canada needed until the bye week to be able to "communicate his vision" for the offense and get the players to "buy in" -- WTF was he doing for the previous however many months?

This is all so stupid and avoidable.

Step 1 Draft a Rookie QB
Step 2 Start installing him as the starter with an offense tailored to his strengths on the morning after the draft. Do not even think about other QBs.
Step 3 Revise the nature of the offense as the rookie QB grows and develops.

The end. How is this so hard?

[86WARD]

I’m pretty sure the hot read thing has gone back to Ben as well. I’m positive that Trubisky mentioned something about it and i feel like Ben said something as well.

Mojouw is 100% correct. All of the not learning can be fixed with coaching. So instead of fixing it now and starting fresh, they are wasting another year of no hot reads to keep it simple so other teams can just tee off on the offense. Wasting a second season of Pickett, wasting Freiermuth and Harris, wasting Pickens and another season wasting DJ.

I just cannot get over the fact that the “#1 WR” didnt score a TD…lol.

[Mojouw]

I’m pretty sure the hot read thing has gone back to Ben as well. I’m positive that Trubisky mentioned something about it and i feel like Ben said something as well.

Mojouw is 100% correct. All of the not learning can be fixed with coaching. So instead of fixing it now and starting fresh, they are wasting another year of no hot reads to keep it simple so other teams can just tee off on the offense. Wasting a second season of Pickett, wasting Freiermuth and Harris, wasting Pickens and another season wasting DJ.

I just cannot get over the fact that the “#1 WR” didnt score a TD…lol.

ghuabl

The "time wasted" thing is what bothers me the most. It is just so hard to get all the roster pieces lined up at the same time to make a serious SB run. Look at the final 4 teams this season...those are rosters loaded with talent at every position. Often in depth. You have maybe a couple of years where you can pull that off and keep everyone healthy enough.

And the Steelers are now in another development year it would seem because they rolled out a hobbled offensive system in order to dither around in the Jeff Fisher zone. So next year is going to be what? Another slow ramp up with a few more portions of the playbook installed? Cool. So maybe by year three of a "totally pro ready" QB's career he will be playing in a pro offense. Then it is time to either extend him or think about the next QB.

What a colossal waste of time and energy.

[polamalubeast]

I will be very careful this time to not have false hope for the next season despite the fact that we finished the season at 7-2...The steelers can't ignore the 2-6 start too

[EzraTank]

But we kept the OC “cause the offense for better” towards the end of the season. This team is screwed for another season by that dumbass

This alone should have gotten Canada fired, that and the fact that he doesn't seem to understand that offensive lineman can't run down field until AFTER the completion.

But we don't fire coordinators we just keep them until their contract runs out.

[EzraTank]

I will be very careful this time to not have false hope for the next season despite the fact that we finished the season at 7-2...The steelers can't ignore the 2-6 start too

That 2-6 start falls squarely on Tomlin for allowing the Trubisky nonsense to happen. As others have said if the offense was built around what Pickett does best from the start and we just had him start day #1 we might go 3-5 in that stretch and we all know that was the difference in missing the playoffs. Even if they had tailored the offense around Pickett and had Trubisky start at least it would have been in place. If Canada's offense doesn't open up next season he should be fired mid season, but we all know he won't be and Tomlin will lose games he should win.


FOOTNOTE: losing TJ didn't help either. TJ and Fitzpatrick basically stole the first game of the season for us against the Bengals. We need to sign/draft someone to clog up the middle. Cam cannot do it alone and is getting up there in age. The Eagles are in the Superbowl right now because their front four are very effective.

[polamalubeast]

That 2-6 start falls squarely on Tomlin for allowing the Trubisky nonsense to happen. As others have said if the offense was built around what Pickett does best from the start and we just had him start day #1 we might go 3-5 in that stretch and we all know that was the difference in missing the playoffs. Even if they had tailored the offense around Pickett and had Trubisky start at least it would have been in place. If Canada's offense doesn't open up next season he should be fired mid season, but we all know he won't be and Tomlin will lose games he should win.


FOOTNOTE: losing TJ didn't help either. TJ and Fitzpatrick basically stole the first game of the season for us against the Bengals.

I think a 4-4 record or even 5-3 in the first half would been possible with a better offense and Pickett would been also much better in the first half of the season if he would have much more reps with the first unit during the training camp

Of course,we will still be bad for 1-2 month on offense next season because this system is so bad

[EzraTank]

I think a 4-4 record or even 5-3 in the first half would been possible with a better offense and Pickett would been also much better in the first half of the season if he would have much more reps with the first unit during the training camp

Of course,we will still be bad for 1-2 month on offense next season because this system is so bad

Oh I agree but was just pointing out that even 3-5 would have been enough. Had Pickett started running with the first team offense the last game of the preseason and been installed as the starter, I imagine we would have seen the Pickett we saw the last three games of the season against the Raiders/Ravens/Browns much earlier and 11 wins would have been possible. But alas we can only hope that Canada does actually know how to run a pro level offense ...

[86WARD]

ghuabl

The "time wasted" thing is what bothers me the most. It is just so hard to get all the roster pieces lined up at the same time to make a serious SB run. Look at the final 4 teams this season...those are rosters loaded with talent at every position. Often in depth. You have maybe a couple of years where you can pull that off and keep everyone healthy enough.

And the Steelers are now in another development year it would seem because they rolled out a hobbled offensive system in order to dither around in the Jeff Fisher zone. So next year is going to be what? Another slow ramp up with a few more portions of the playbook installed? Cool. So maybe by year three of a "totally pro ready" QB's career he will be playing in a pro offense. Then it is time to either extend him or think about the next QB.

What a colossal waste of time and energy.

And if they get a new OC, it will be a couple more wasted years “learning a new system”.

[NCSteeler]

Ah yes Jeff Fisher, that is who Tomlin is becoming. I see it now. Just good enough to be considered a top guy without ever doing anything in The last ten years to earn such respect. "Be hired tomorrow if ya let him go" yeah yeah worked great for the Rams



But it does sound like Rooney's clearly signed off on keeping Canada or it was thier idea

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[tube517]

[pczach]

And if they get a new OC, it will be a couple more wasted years “learning a new system”.

The most frustrating thing for me is that I understand Pickett is a rookie...I get it. You don't want to put too much on him. But I'm not expecting him to operate like Peyton Manning as a 10-year vet orchestrating the entire offensive playbook and protections in 5 seconds. Just allow him to make simple checks to a hot route when you know what the defense is doing.

I also understand that all the skill players are young, but simple checks at the line aren't that difficult.

It's just so disappointing that they chose not to incorporate something that is done at much lower levels of football.

[Mojouw]

And if they get a new OC, it will be a couple more wasted years “learning a new system”.

In all honestly, I do suspect this will all work out fine. Tomlin and the rest of the staff are too good at their jobs for this to really implode. I think they will be back to contention far sooner than most think.

But, for me, this is a process and results thing. I think they are going to have great results through a flawed process. It just seems with a better process, they could make the path to the desired outcomes a bit wider.

[86WARD]

In all honestly, I do suspect this will all work out fine. Tomlin and the rest of the staff are too good at their jobs for this to really implode. I think they will be back to contention far sooner than most think.

But, for me, this is a process and results thing. I think they are going to have great results through a flawed process. It just seems with a better process, they could make the path to the desired outcomes a bit wider.

I’m on the total opposite end of the spectrum. I think this will be the beginning of a disaster…

It’s a process. The coaching staff is refusing to acknowledge the flaws in their current process. When players complain about the offense and defenses know your plays before you do…it’s a major problem. Players like Heyward, Fitzpatrick, Watt, Pickett, Harris, Pickens, Freiermuth…they are all being wasted on a team that can’t get their shit together and when that occurs, time is your enemy and if they 2008 or 2009 a draft in the next couple years, they’ll be screwed even more than they already are…

[Mach1]

A page from Canadas playbook.

[86WARD]

A page from Canadas playbook.

[pczach]

In all honestly, I do suspect this will all work out fine. Tomlin and the rest of the staff are too good at their jobs for this to really implode. I think they will be back to contention far sooner than most think.

But, for me, this is a process and results thing. I think they are going to have great results through a flawed process. It just seems with a better process, they could make the path to the desired outcomes a bit wider.

I agree. I think everything will start to happen and he will be trusted with many more responsibilities. The team improved so much as a whole, and the coaching staff wanted everyone on the same page and executing the simplified offense. I see them preparing him with much more playbook and mechanisms for more control at the LOS. But I'm with you. It is so frustrating to watch this all happen so slowly. He is 25 years old and they are grooming him at a pace that won't see him be fully operational until 2026.

I kid.....I kid.....sort of.

[polamalubeast]

[steel striker]

It's very sad and, yet they bring back Matt C unreal!