The Pittsburgh Steelers saw a big drop off in deep passing after the 2018 season. That drop off has two easy-to-pick-out causes, first the departure of Antonio Brown, and second, Ben Roethlisberger’s injury early in the 2019 season.
When Ben Roethlisberger returned to action in 2020 the team didn’t have the same success fans were used to seeing from the Steelers offense. A big part of the problem was the lack of a deep passing game. In spite of the addition in 2020 of Chase Claypool, the Steelers deep ball efficiency dropped substantially.
We’re not here to fully explore all the causes of the Steelers less efficient deep passing, it’s a myriad of factors that involve decreased mobility from the quarterback, decreased offensive line play, the loss of Antonio Brown, injuries to JuJu Smith-Schuster, less accurate passes, a stagnant offensive system, a lousy run game.