Steelers WR says the quiet part out loud about Pittsburgh's offense

In most NFL franchises, good offenses can be sustained, but great defenses are a year-to-year proposition. Well, the Pittsburgh Steelers are built differently. Defense is in their culture. It is in their blood. Although they have a proud history of drafting and developing wide receivers, Pittsburgh has been mediocre at best for the last several years or so. It is time for that side of the ball to play better.

While appearing on The Ed Block CourageCast, Steelers wide receiver Calvin Austin III put it bluntly that the offense has been the side of the ball that has been letting the team down. It is not like Omar Khan and his predecessor Kevin Colbert have avoided trying to fix that side of the ball. They have drafted numerous offensive players in recent years, but don't have a ton to show for it, to be honest.

Read this quote from Austin in its entirety, and don't tell me that he is sick of the same ole, same ole.

"I feel like a lot of times when we look at the Steelers, it's all about relying on our defense. And we have a top-notch defense, of course, but we gotta be the ones. We can't always be like, 'okay, the defense did this, the defense needs to, if they would've stopped them one more time.' No, the offense, we need to be the ones that the team can count on that can score those points. For us, I know if we get that offense and defense together, then you can really start to be serious about making a run at things."

Moving on from the ineffective combination of Kenny Pickett and Matt Canada was the right call for the Steelers to make. While adding Arthur Smith as the new offensive coordinator, as well as Russell Wilson and Justin Fields to the quarterback room certainly moved the needle, that is a lot of moving pieces. I think the right combination can get the Steelers to 11 or 12 wins this season, but that is it.

No matter how you slice it, Austin is completely right in this. The entire offense must step up big time.

Calvin Austin III calls out entire Pittsburgh Steelers offense to play better

Even when the Steelers were humming offensively at the tail-end of Ben Roethlisberger's prime, other organizational issues got in the way of the Steelers being successful to their standard. This is a franchise that measures success based on if a team won a Super Bowl or not. The Steelers last won one in 2008 and last went to one in 2010. We are more than a decade removed from either of those.

I wouldn't go as far as to say Austin is calling the kettle black, but we all knew what he was saying to be true. For whatever reason, the right combination of run, throw and defense has not manifested perfectly in Pittsburgh in quite some time. The two mainstays are ownership and head coach Mike Tomlin. To me, I think they are the biggest culprits in this, but others are partly to blame in this as well.

Ultimately, you have to have hope that Smith's ground-heavy offensive attack will give this Steelers offense an identity it has long been searching for. To be quite frank, I think on paper it pairs quite nicely with Tomlin's defensive ethos he has helped build this franchise around. Of course, an evolving passing game was often Smith's bugaboo when he was the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

Smith is either going to fit Pittsburgh like a glove, or it will be another grease fire at The Confluence.