Before the season began, I wrote an article entitled “Slants Are Back” to the Pittsburgh Steelers offense. Thursday night, they were on full display in Paycor Stadium. Just for the home team.
In a game where Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase caught 16 passes, a record for his franchise and against the Steelers, slants were the featured route concept. Pittsburgh had no answer for it.
Before expanding on what went wrong, here’s a look at simply what happened. Below is a montage of every completed slant pass against Pittsburgh. In total, seven of Joe Flacco’s 31 completions – that’s 22.