Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is not thrilled with his team's effort in the running game this year. It may be time to break Rashard Mendenhall out of storage.
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"Maybe we will bump him around a little more in practice this week," Tomlin said. "He has done a nice job of running and cutting at full speed. Now, let's see if he can play a little football. We will thud him up a little bit on a day we are allowed to carry our pads and see if he can respond positively to it."
Mendenhall was listed as a full participant in practice the last two weeks, but he has yet to suit up for a game. The Steelers are 30th in the NFL in rushing yards and yards-per-carry average.
"We haven't run the ball as well as we have liked," Tomlin said. "I'm not interested in assigning blame in that regard. I will take responsibility for it. The reality is we've got room for growth."
The Steelers dumped offensive coordinator Bruce Arians in large part because ownership wanted to improve their running game. The team averaged 4.4 yards-per-carry last year; they are 2.6 through two weeks.
Perhaps Tomlin and Todd Haley will just admit that giving the ball to Ben Roethlisberger a ton is the best plan. (Just like Arians did.) Big Ben is first in the league in third down efficiency.
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