Steelers' Rookie Zach Frazier Reveals Exactly What Mike Tomlin And Russell Wilson Were Trying To Hide

There was no intention to run a play, and the Steelers were successful in getting Newton to jump offsides, which rarely ever works anymore. The rookie defensive tackle made a big mistake, and it's safe to assume that the Commanders will spend extra time working on those situations to make sure they don't fall for that again. 

Even though getting the opponent to jump offsides in that situation is rare, Frazier hurt his team's chances of succeeding on that again for the rest of the season. You can't tell the opposition what to expect. While Newton made a critical rookie mistake that cost his team the game, Frazier made one himself after the game. Both will have to learn from those quickly.

The whole premise of not running a play made perfect sense. The Steelers still had a pair of timeouts left, so they could easily burn one if it didn't work out. If they wanted to save those timeouts for Washington's potential last drive, they could have taken the delay of game penalty and backed up to their own 46-yard-line, which would have given Corliss Waitman more space to punt without giving up a touchback.

Frazier also did praise Wilson and the offensive line for how they sold that they would go for a quarterback sneak. It takes a lot of acting to convince the opponent that you will snap the ball in a situation where you most likely would not. Even though Frazier gave that away, the Steelers may be able to use that to their advantage. 

Steelers' Potentially Using Reverse Psychology

Now that the football world knows that this young offensive line can sell the idea of them running a quarterback sneak and Wilson has an effective hard count, teams will be more likely to hold back and play conservatively. The opponents will probably be much less eager to time the snap up and stop the potential sneak.

The Steelers can take that knowledge and run a quarterback sneak more effectively. In situations where it just seems like a hard count, this offensive line full of maulers can get a bigger push to open up a lane for Wilson to run through and get a first down in that scenario. Who knows if that's truly the case, but there is only one way to find out: try it and see if it works.