Don't Expect Too Much Change from Todd Haley-Run Pittsburgh Steelers Offense

There's been a lot of hand-wringing about what the Pittsburgh Steelers offense is going to look like with Todd Haley calling the plays. Obviously, there will be changes—the plays, the terminology and the overall offensive philosophy are going to be quite different than what we've become accustomed to under former coordinator Bruce Arians.

However, those changes are going to be far more subtle than dramatic, and it would be hasty to call what Haley's about to preside over as a "new-look" Steelers offense.

One theory is that Haley will turn the Steelers into a run-heavy team once again, but this isn't necessarily the case. Haley said at his introductory press conference back in February that he isn't a "system" coordinator—he doesn't have a specific game plan he tries to install for every team he works with—and instead plays up the strengths of the players already on the roster.

Therefore, expect the Steelers to remain as pass-heavy as always, though it's not beyond imagination that the run game will get some extra attention from Haley. The Steelers have five backs on the roster not counting No. 1 tailback Rashard Mendenhall, who won't likely take the field this season after tearing his ACL in Week 17 of last year.

That means Haley will need to find a combination that works, which likely means a committee approach led by Isaac Redman and assisted along by Dexter McCluster-clone Chris Rainey, who will add speed to their otherwise bruising collection of backs.

Haley has built teams into the top rushing units in the league (Kansas City Chiefs) and has also molded teams into being among the best at passing the ball (Arizona Cardinals). Again, it's Haley's ability to identify strengths and then play them up that has made him such a successful coordinator, not his desire to bend offenses to his rigid system (a la Mike Martz).

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has mentioned a few times that the playbook is vastly different than the one the team used under Arians—but that's mainly because of changes in terminology rather than any change in the plays themselves. 

The passing game will likely be refined some, in ways that can maximize output while minimizing the risks to Roethlisberger, who has suffered a number of injuries over the years thanks to the way he plays the game as well as shaky offensive line protection.

One of the ways the Steelers are going to hopefully reduce how many times Roethlisberger is hit is to rely more heavily on the no-huddle.

The no-huddle has both benefits and drawbacks—it puts opposing defenses in the unfortunate position of not being able to swap out personnel between plays, thus catching them off guard, but at the same time, the offense cannot switch out personnel, either.

Obviously, the Steelers cannot constantly work out of the no-huddle play after play, but the fact that it speeds up the game will allow Roethlisberger to hopefully get the ball out of his hands faster and thus prevent him from taking so much punishment.

Dave Bryan of SteelersDepot.com has painstakingly scoured his Steelers gamebooks to map out just how many times Roethlisberger has worked out of the no-huddle and how successful he has been when doing so.

As you can see, so far the Steelers have used the no-huddle more often in fourth-quarter situations. It appears now, based on Roethlisberger's comments, that we'll be seeing an uptick in no-huddle plays throughout each game.

In the no-huddle, Roethlisberger has had a mixed bag of results, though he's far more successful at it in the fourth quarter, averaging a completion percentage of 71 percent when going no-huddle near the end of the game.

Haley, Roethlisberger and the receiving corps will likely work hard to get more consistency out of the no-huddle, using what went right in the fourth quarter as a template. 

No, the Steelers offense isn't going to look all that different this year. Haley is not going to stray from Roethlisberger connecting with Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown because of some imagined obsession with running the ball.

Expect things to look quite similar when it comes to play design, except that things should happen at a significantly faster pace. That's the only change we'll see; the rest of it—the playbook, the terminology—are differences that affect the players but shouldn't impact much when it comes to what we see on the field come September.

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