Last season the entirety of the Pittsburgh Steelers offense fell apart when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger went down with an elbow injury in the second week of the season. No one is saying it is easy to win without your franchise quarterback but the turmoil — and offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner’s response — really highlighted just how heavily Fichtner relied on Roethlisberger to make him look smart.
Here are three things Fichtner needs to figure out this training camp so as not to repeat last season.
Run the football
When you have a quarterback like Roethlisberger it is easy to let the run game slide and just lean on your franchise quarterback. But Pittsburgh completely gave up on the run game last season. Fichtner has plenty of talented running backs. The notion this group couldn’t muster more touches in 2019 for as close as the defense kept games is unacceptable.
Get the tight ends involved
In 2020, if your tight ends are nothing more than a glorified offensive lineman, you are doing football wrong. Vance McDonald and Eric Ebron should be one of the most potent tandems in the AFC. But this will depend on whether or not Fichtner can loosen up and actually work in schemes to incorporate them consistently in the passing game.
Get creative
Antonio Brown is never coming back. As much as Fichtner depended on Roethlisberger, he also depended on Brown to be the team’s primary target and to pull tons of coverage to him. Fichtner doesn’t have a wide receiver on the roster who can command constant double teams yet which means smarter route concepts and schemes are a must.
