Mark Madden: Can the 9-0 Steelers run the ball when needed?

When the playoffs start, the Steelers better hope they don’t have to run the ball. The Steelers very often can’t. When they can’t, they stop trying to.

There isn’t much to complain about when a 9-0 team wins by 26. But I do sports-talk radio and am obligated to try.

On Sunday, the Steelers threw 46 times in a game they never trailed in. They ran 20 times. That includes three Benny Snell garbage-time totes and a scramble by Ben Roethlisberger. The only thing that stopped the Steelers throwing was Mason Rudolph quarterbacking a series.

The Steelers passed 70% of the time against Cincinnati. That’s more often than Roethlisberger threw in 2018, when he led the NFL with 675 passing attempts, 5,129 passing yards and 16 interceptions. The Steelers passed two-thirds of the time that season.

The Steelers missed the playoffs in ’18. But that won’t happen this year.

Such lack of balance doesn’t usually bode well. But the Steelers are 9-0.

The pass is working: Against the Bengals, Roethlisberger completed 27 of 46 passes for 333 yards, four touchdowns and no picks. Of Roethlisberger’s statistics, his 22/4 TDs-to-interceptions ratio is the most impressive (and the most crucial).

The run isn’t working: The Steelers gained 44 yards on 20 carries Sunday, an average of 2.2 yards per. They averaged 2.6 yards vs. Dallas the week before and 3.0 yards against Baltimore the week before that. In those victories over Dallas and Baltimore, the Steelers had a chance to close out both by converting short-yardage situations for first downs but failed. “Bell cow” James Conner is averaging a subpar 3.4 yards on the season.

Questions linger.

Do the Steelers need to run the ball? Not so far.

Will the Steelers need to run the ball? You would think. Keeping Kansas City’s quick-strike offense off the field in a playoff game by way of maintaining possession seems a good idea unless the Steelers think they can win a high-scoring shootout or think their defense can do what few have and contain Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The former seems a big long shot, the latter highly unlikely despite the quality of the Steelers’ defense.

Do the Steelers want to run the ball more? Roethlisberger doesn’t. He prefers throwing.

Why can’t the Steelers run the ball?

That’s the big question, and it’s especially puzzling considering that a Steelers running back cracked the 100-yard mark in the team’s first three games and four of their first five. But the ground game has since sputtered badly.

Part of it might be because the Steelers don’t run very often. They had 20 carries Sunday, 18 carries at Dallas, 16 at Baltimore. The run/pass split is out of whack. There’s no rhythm to their running game.

Part of it might be because the Steelers line up in the shotgun so often: 77% of the time. It’s tougher for linemen to run-block out of a two-point stance. (The Steelers’ linemen aren’t necessarily great at run-blocking, anyway.) Running backs generate little momentum taking a handoff sidecar-style.

Part of it might be because Derek Watt has missed four of nine games because of injury, thus removing fullback from the mix. But he played Sunday.

It’s difficult to criticize. The Steelers are 9-0, which papers over lots of problems. The best they’ve looked offensively lately is in an empty set: No backs, all receivers.

But can the Steelers run the ball if they need to? What if Roethlisberger has a bad day?

Fortunately, there’s no sign of that. Anybody who thought Roethlisberger could struggle Sunday after not practicing all week is the densest of marks. He even hit the deep ball. Roethlisberger might yet get a vote for NFL MVP before his career ends.