Mark Madden: Steelers' conservative offense, missed opportunities look awfully familiar

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense under new coordinator Arthur Smith is a work in progress.

Sunday’s season opener at Atlanta didn’t yield much progress.

The Steelers averaged 17.88 points per game last season. They scored 18 points at Atlanta. Six field goals. They failed to score a touchdown.

Quarterback Justin Fields didn’t throw a single pass in the middle of the field. That’s how the offense was last year.

Fields has run with the first team throughout almost all of preseason. So, his sudden insertion as Sunday’s starter is no excuse. The offense was conservative by design and by execution.

The offense didn’t get into the red zone till nearly midway through the fourth quarter.

Like last season, the Steelers kept laying up for field goals and trusting the strong leg of kicker Chris Boswell.

On their first possession, the Steelers faced third-and-6 at Atlanta’s 41. They didn’t pass. They ran off-tackle for 2 yards, then Boswell kicked a 57-yard field goal.

They played it safe the first time they had the ball this season. Except laying up for a 57-yard field goal isn’t all that safe. (Actually, maybe it is with Boswell.)

That sequence insanely contradicts what the Steelers did in the fourth quarter, going for it (and failing) on fourth-and-1 from Atlanta’s 6-yard-line with a 15-10 lead.

Why not kick, extend the lead to eight and make Atlanta score a touchdown and two-point conversion to tie?

Said coach Mike Tomlin, “We live that life. We don’t live in our fears. We play and play to win.”

OK, but for the rest of the game, you lived a different life, did live in your fears, and laid up for field goals. Tomlin’s words were a steaming pile of self-contradiction.

The tight ends didn’t exactly blossom, as predicted in Smith’s offense. Pat Freiermuth had four catches for 27 yards — $48.4 million doesn’t buy what you’d think.

The running game averaged just 3.3 yards per carry. Fields got 57 yards on 14 carries. Najee Harris ran hard, getting 70 yards on 20 carries. Jaylen Warren was a non-factor, getting just two totes.

Not one thing about the offense was impressive. (Wideout George Pickens made some nice catches, but made some dumb plays, too.)

The extremely conservative tone should be a reminder that while offensive X’s and O’s might not be dictated by the head coach, the overall approach is. Because that didn’t change.

Winning without scoring a touchdown is remarkable in this era of NFL football, testament to the incompetence of the Steelers and Falcons more than anything.

The game was excruciating to watch, even more so if you saw the excitement on display in Thursday’s NFL opener between Kansas City and Baltimore. The Steelers-Falcons mess was a depressing plummet to the most boring circle of football hell. Abandon all hope for entertainment, ye who enter here.

That’s how it’s going to be all season.

The Steelers are a meh team that will play scared offensive football, the purpose being to force bad, low-scoring games by way of winning them in the fourth quarter. The hypocycloid has guts.

That’s a tradition by now, and the Steelers aren’t bad at doing it. They have enough playmaking components on defense to make it work.

But that method won’t often beat good teams.

That method won’t win enough.

That method won’t win a playoff game.

It should win at Denver this coming Sunday.

If he’s healthy enough, Russell Wilson should be the starting quarterback at Denver.

Fields won. He played OK, but no better.

Fields fumbled on his first snap as a Steeler. But he regrouped. His running ability adds something good.

But the Steelers offense didn’t score a touchdown.

Fields didn’t do enough to steal the job. He’s not the hot hand.

It’s also hard to imagine Tomlin not starting Wilson at Denver, the team that disrespected and dumped Wilson. That’s paying him $38 million to not play for them.

It’s also hard to imagine Wilson not getting mad if Tomlin starts Fields.