Former Steelers Running Back Is Furious With Offensive Line Play Through 2 Weeks

The Pittsburgh Steelers have had many issues protecting Kenny Pickett in the pocket, as well as opening lanes for their running backs. Merril Hoge knows a thing or two about running lanes, as he spent eight seasons in the NFL as a running back, going through the lanes that his offensive lines would open up for him. After watching the Steelers for the first two weeks of the NFL season, he has already had enough of their subpar play, and no one can really blame him for that. 

Steelers Offensive Line Frustrating Hoge

On the WDVE Morning Show, Hoge went off on the offensive line unit for underperforming, although calling those games "underperforming" might be an understatement. Hoge wouldn't consider those games as playing football. 

“You’ve got people coming in there, they try and are playing patty cake."

The Steelers are too busy playing patty cake than stacking pancakes, and it shows on the field, both in stats and in the eye test. The failure to get the run game going was partially why Matt Canada just stopped trying to run the ball in Week 1 despite Pickett getting sacked five times with many more pressures getting to him. Week 2 wasn't much better, as the defense carried the team while the Steelers offense amassed negative seven rushing yards in the final frame of the game. 

Hoge called out the entire offense for failing to block well while specifying two players without outright naming them. 

"Your wide receivers don’t block anybody, and your left guard, who was a beast in Philly, has just gotten destroyed, your center’s destroyed, your tackles are getting destroyed, I mean across the board. This is as bad of a group as there is the National Football League right now." 

Isaac Seumalo was part of the reason that the Philadelphia Eagles were in that tight offensive battle in the Super Bowl, let alone making it to the big game in the first place. It's very concerning to watch Seumalo go from being an elite guard to being potentially the biggest liability on the struggling line. While some might say that he's just going through growing pains in a new system, that excuse won't work with everyone else. 

Mason Cole displayed many improvements that he had made from 2021 to 2022 when he signed with the Steelers. He seemingly never went through growing pains, but his production has also fallen off of a cliff. James Daniels, who Hoge didn't specify, has also struggled after having an elite 2022 performance.

Hoge did not stop there, claiming that this team won't do anything all year long if this issue does not get fixed. Many fans want to get on Pickett, but Hoge doesn't think that that is the right thing to do. 

"Unless they get better, you’ve got no shot at getting better. We can quit pointing fingers at Kenny Pickett because if that doesn’t get corrected, you’re not going to do anything offensively.”

Pickett has had a rough time to begin the 2023 season with defenders in his lap almost every play. While his accuracy has been uncharacteristically bad, Hoge believes that his lack of accuracy and his other issues have stemmed from the lack of protection. 

Hoge does have a very good point on this. The Steelers offense went from mediocre to elite in the mid-2010s once Mike Munchak was hired to fix the offensive line in 2014. The Killer B's era took off once the offensive line was fixed. The Steelers didn't even have any major additions during that offseason besides an undrafted free agent named Alejandro Villanueva, and he had previously played defensive tackle and tried out as a tight end for the Eagles.

If Pat Meyer can work the same magic that he worked in 2022, the Steelers could rebound on offense and be the force that many fans thought they could be. However, if this stretch of terrible play continues, the Steelers (especially Pickett, Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren) will be in for a long season.

What do you think of Hoge's comments on the Steelers' offensive line? Let us know in the comments.

#SteelerNation.