To be more specific in my criticism, there are 3 main things that bother me about the Haley offense.
1. Master of none - they do a bunch of things but don't seem to have any 1 thing they are great at. What's their bread and butter? They have a productive run game, but how confident are you they can run for a first down on 3rd and 2 when the defense is looking for it? The passing game makes explosive plays, but why do they fail to convert so often on a 3rd a 6 or shorter type situation?
2. Plays don't seem to build on each other - you watch a great offense and you see a what looks to be the same play but one time it's a run, one time it's a short pass, and another it's a deep shot. The other part of this is the patterns themselves. So many of the steeler plays look like a bunch of unrelated routes, instead of routes that are designed to work together to confuse the defense and get one of the WRs open.
3. Redzone confusion - this is really just the end result one 1 and 2. When the field shrinks, you can't rely on the defense being fooled as easily or playing back because they are afraid of being beaten deep. The Steelers chew up yardage because defenses play back on them, but when the field is compressed, it's a totally different game.
We all know Bell is a patient runner. It seems we also have a patient passing game, always looking to counter punch, to try to do the opposite of what the defense expects.
The problem is when you get to the redzone, you have to attack. Hit the hole hard, run that crisp route, make that quick throw.
And that circles back to point 1. What are the plays where the steelers can so perfectly execute that it's near impossible to stop? With all their talent, there should be quite a few plays like that. And once you have that, then you build the wrinkle off of it and keep the defense guessing.
