Steelers and Justin Fields still suffering from slow offensive starts

INDIANAPOLIS — As Justin Fields fired rookie center Zach Frazier’s first snap on Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback stumbled, tripped over Frazier’s feet and fell to the turf.

He quickly threw the ball to running back Najee Harris, but the Indianapolis Colts defense swallowed it up and the game ended with a loss of 3 yards.

The rest of the first half didn’t go much better for the Steelers offense, resulting in a 27-24 loss, the first of the season. Other low points included a botched fourth-down conversion on the second drive and a fumble by George Pickens near the goal line in the second quarter that snuffed out the team’s most promising drive of the half.

At halftime, the Steelers trailed 17-3 to the Colts, who had lost quarterback Anthony Richardson in the first quarter, continuing a frustrating and troubling trend of slow starts.

Despite starting 3-0, playing from behind and preventing a late offense has never been a sustainable formula for the Steelers, and that was even more evident on Sunday. For Fields, the key to correcting early disjointed play is also obvious.

“It’s not a pregame routine,” Fields said. “It’s not about doing something special or drinking a different color of Gatorade. This is none of that. It’s just about coming out first, coming out focused and ready to go.”

“And we didn’t do that at the beginning. Over time we gained momentum, but that’s not mystical. It’s a performance at the end of the day and we didn’t come out with the right intention.”

The offense rebounded with three second-half touchdowns – matching the team’s total touchdowns in the first three weeks – but unlike previous performances, the Steelers were unable to fully overcome their first-half gap with a win leave.

“I like how the offense fought back and we knew we were shooting ourselves in the foot, so it’s kind of the same story,” Fields said. “We just have to work on that and work on not getting hurt and starting quicker and not getting caught up in things and coming out of the gate hot.”

This should be the week the Steelers fix their slow starts. They emphasized it in practice, preached it from podiums and in locker rooms.

And yet, when Sunday came, the same problem plagued the Steelers for the fourth week in a row.

The offense couldn’t sustain drives. There were self-inflicted wounds, this time in the form of the costly fumble in the red zone. And the running game was completely absent except for a drive by Cordarrelle Patterson, who left in the second quarter with an ankle injury.

“I don’t know,” Harris said, asking what was causing the slow starts. “It’s just that we just have to act on our behalf. They will attack with certain defensive measures to stop the run. We know we just have to do it. Some teams are adopting different structures to stop him. Some guys. “We have free rein on certain plans and things like that. We saw that and somehow we did better in the second half.

The Steelers trailed at halftime in three of their first four games, but offensive starts have been particularly slow in the last two games. The Steelers averaged five points and 5.1 yards per play in the first half of their last two games. They also converted only 33% of third downs. But in the second half of those games, the Steelers averaged 17 points, 6.1 yards per play and converted 60% of third downs, according to ESPN Research.

“This is the greatest team sport there is,” Fields said. “So if we get all 11 guys on offense to do their job, we’re not going to be in the position we were in, especially if they get off to a good start. We have to be able to react like that. “We definitely have to be better on offense with the ball early on.”

At the same time, the defense was slow to adjust to what was happening and was outnumbered 37:29 in the first half of this season. Sunday’s loss got off to a particularly awkward start, with Richardson giving Michael Pittman Jr. a 32-yard gain on the first play of the game. From there, the Steelers’ defense continued to falter, allowing back-to-back touchdown drives to open a game for the first time since a loss to the Eagles in Week 8 in 2022. The pass defense also allowed six plays of at least 15 yards. four in the first half. In the first three weeks, the Steelers had allowed just twelve such plays.

“One of our goals was to minimize the chunk plays, and we went out there and just didn’t capitalize on it — no matter if we were in position, we weren’t passing the ball,” safety DeShon Elliott said. “We should use the training and bring it into the game. In my opinion we still have to work a little bit (harder) on training, but we will get there.”

However, unlike the first three weeks, the Steelers’ vaunted defense was unable to slow the Colts in the second half, allowing them to convert 53% of their third downs, nearly double the Steelers’ season average allowed . Despite a flawed but still convincing performance from Fields with his three touchdowns in the second half, the Steelers were unable to complete the comeback. However, for this team to have more success this season, they will need to find ways to avoid comeback situations.

“The real tangible reasons why we lost this game are ours,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “We were sloppy in a lot of ways. You just don’t win football games against motivated groups at your venue who play the way we played in certain cases today.”