Pittsburgh Steelers: This Problem Can’t Be Happening Again
By Dan Thomas
For the Pittsburgh Steelers, this scene seems all too familiar. Let’s flashback to a year ago: The red-hot Steelers won their regular season finale against an AFC North rival and advanced to the Wild Card Round of the NFL Playoffs.
In that Week 17 game, Ben Roethlisberger played great as he threw for 317 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Antonio Brown dominated (as usual) as he hauled in 7 receptions for 128 yards and 1 touchdown.
Yet if you remember, these individual efforts and overall victory by the team wasn’t the real storyline of the game. The fact that the Steelers #1 RB Le’Veon Bell suffered a right knee injury was.
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In the 3rd quarter of the game, Reggie Nelson hit Bell directly on his knee and it resulted in an injury. Bell would miss the rest of the game and his backup at the time, Josh Harris, finished with 7 yards rushing on 5 carries. If you do the math, that is a pathetic 1.4 yards per carry.
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The knee injury was significant enough where it kept Bell from playing the following week in the Wild Card Round. The Steelers offense lost a lot firepower due to his absence and they fell in the first round of the playoffs to their AFC Divisional Rival, the Baltimore Ravens.
In that game, Harris and Ben Tate combined for 44 rushing yards on 14 carries.
Lets fast forward to now:
The Pittsburgh Steelers won their regular season finale against an AFC North Rival and advanced to the Wildcard Round of the NFL Playoffs.
In yesterday’s game Ben Roethlisberger overcame some early struggles and put up some big numbers on the stat-sheet. He threw for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Antonio Brown added more plays to his everlasting highlight reel (what else is new?) as he was able to record 13 receptions, 187 yards and 1 touchdown.
However, these statistics might not be this biggest takeaway from this game.
In the 2nd quarter of the game, RB DeAngelo Williams left the game with a right ankle injury after a Browns’ defender came down on his leg at the end of the tackle. Williams missed the rest of the game and his backup, Fitzgerald Toussaint, finished with 24 yards on 12 carries. That would be meager 2.0 yards per carry.
Since taking over as the starter, Williams has been terrific. He has truly eased the pain of the Steelers and their fans when they lost RB Le’Veon Bell for the season back in Week 8.
Between Weeks 9-16, Williams averaged over 125 yards from scrimmage per game and has eight rushing touchdowns in that span. He is a big reason the Steelers offense is ranked 3rd in the NFL.
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If Williams is unable to play in the Wildcard game against their AFC North divisional rival, the Cincinnati Bengals, it would be a devastating loss. The Steelers would have to rely on a combination of Toussaint and Jordan Todman at the running back position.
These two would form an underwhelming committee at the running back position and would instantly give Steelers’ fans flashbacks to their playoff lost from last year.
Just how bad is it?
In 2015, they have 22 combined carries.
Over the last two years, these two backup RBs have combined for just 238 rushing yards.
Toussaint has two career playoff carries while Toddman has zero.
If the Bengals are looking for a weak link on the Steelers offense, they have found it.