What Happened to Le'Veon Bell and the Steelers' Rushing Attack?

Sunday's 27-20 victory over the Atlanta Falcons kept the Pittsburgh Steelers in a great position to earn a playoff spot at the end of the NFL regular season. The story of the victory was all about quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and how he was able to beat the Falcons defense with his arm.

However, one thing that was noticeably absent from Sunday's victory was the running game. Even though running back Le'Veon Bell finished the game with 119 total yards, pushing his season total to 2,043, only 47 of those yards came on the ground. What went wrong?

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Indeed, the Falcons had a plan of attack to crowd the line and force Roethlisberger to beat them throwing the football. Fortunately for Pittsburgh, Roethlisberger and his 360 passing yards were enough to get the job done.

I don’t want to make this seem like the Falcons defense pitched a shutout against Bell, because it wasn’t that at all. Bell still got two rushing touchdowns and was a huge factor in the outcome of the game.

But that "Counter OF" game Pittsburgh used to batter the Cincinnati Bengals last Sunday was noticeably absent. Let’s take a closer look at how the Falcons defended the run and where the Steelers did themselves no favors.

NFL Rewind

On this first play, we see the Steelers setting up to run the patented Counter OF. It means that guard David DeCastro is going to pull and fullback Will Johnson follows behind him, cutting a path for Bell to run through. Against the Bengals, this play worked over and over, and Cincinnati never had an answer.

However, the Falcons counter it by stacking the box with nine defenders within five yards of the football. Atlanta had the numbers, but with Bell and a little luck, this play can still work.

NFL Rewind

Nevertheless, at the snap, Atlanta played it perfectly. Everyone locks up on a blocker and Falcons linebacker Paul Worrilow plays spot-on assignment football. He steps in and fills the crease and forces Bell back inside where the rest of the Falcons clean it up.

It will be interesting to see if the Chiefs take the approach of stacking the line like this and sell out on the run game. With the Steelers, sometimes it is pick your poison.

However, some of the wounds were self-induced. Of the Steelers' 57 total plays Sunday, 13 of them were run out of the little-used pistol set. And it was done with very little success. Ken Laird of TribLive Radio pointed out something that seemed to be true:

"

The Steelers had a few decent plays out of the pistol formation last week, but it generally feels like it doesn't work, no?

— Ken Laird (@Ken_Laird) December 14, 2014"

Here, we see the Steelers setting up in the pistol and the Falcons are playing off, expecting the pass. If only the Steelers would have thrown it:

NFL Rewind

Instead, Pittsburgh runs an awkward pitch play to the left that seemed to be doomed from the very beginning. It’s bad enough when a run play sets up like this so far off the line of scrimmage, but as you see in the next picture, the offensive line failed miserably:

NFL Rewind

I don’t know what the impetus was for running so much out of the pistol, but it was misguided. Perhaps offensive coordinator Todd Haley felt it necessary to really shake things up since the counter wasn’t working. Regardless of the why, it ended up feeling forced, and the offensive line was not ready for it.

Maybe the most interesting part of what happened Sunday will be how much of what Atlanta did will impact what the Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals do in the final two games of the season. Pittsburgh is fortunate to have a passing game it can turn to, but that doesn’t mean the Steelers coaches don’t need to find more diverse and creative ways to move the football on the ground.