Article

1st & 10 Not Good For Ben This Season

I was fooling around with some passing stats tonight, and more specifically first down stats, when I came across the stats for Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on 1st down and 10 this season. Heading into this season Roethlisberger has been a good career passer on 1st and 10 by registering a 63.3% completion ratio and a healthy 8.6 yards per attempt. His passer rating heading into this season on that down and distance was 92.3.

This year though through the first 10 games of the 2011 season Roethlisberger is way off his usual self on 1st and 10 as he has just a 58.4% completion percentage to go along with a 6.3 yards per attempt. 5 of his 9 interceptions have come on this down and distance and he has 0 touchdowns. Those numbers equate to a 58.7 passer rating.

I compared his numbers to the other quarterbacks in the league this year with 60 or more attempts on 1st down and 10 and he ranks right near the bottom as you can see in the table below.

I dug deeper and compiled the targets of these 1st down passes as you can see in the bottom table and found that second year wide receivers Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders are down at the bottom of the list as far as completion percentages go. Heading into the Steelers bye week, Brown lead all receivers in catches from weeks 7 to 10, but lost in those numbers is the fact he was targeted 12 times on 1st and 10 and only had 5 catches for 46 yards in those 4 games.

While I am not overly worried about these stats for Roethlisberger just yet, it is worth paying attention to as we head into the final 6 games of the season. Ben is still fantastic on 3rd downs once again this season and as long as he continues to convert those 3rd and longs it will make his 1st and 10 woes an irrelevant stat. Of course if he picks his 1st and 10 production up, it would present less predictability perhaps on 2nd downs. I will check back in on these stats after a few more games to see if he has improved.

1st & 10 Quarterback Passing Stats Through Week 11

Quarterback COMP ATT YDS COMP % YPA YPC TD INT SACK RATE
Aaron Rodgers 88 116 1,316 75.9 11.4 15.0 10 2 10 134.1
Matt Schaub 65 98 1,173 66.3 12.0 18.0 6 3 3 114.9
Alex Smith 72 104 829 69.2 8.0 11.5 5 0 5 109
Matthew Stafford 88 128 1,091 68.8 8.5 12.4 7 2 6 106.6
Matt Ryan 73 116 1,059 62.9 9.1 14.5 6 1 3 106.2
Jay Cutler 64 100 932 64.0 9.3 14.6 5 2 8 102.6
Tom Brady 96 135 1,350 71.1 10.0 14.1 5 5 5 99.9
Colt McCoy 74 111 883 66.7 8.0 11.9 4 2 4 95.3
Tony Romo 80 121 1,073 66.1 8.9 13.4 4 3 5 94.8
Matt Moore 41 61 441 67.2 7.2 10.8 2 1 5 92.3
Eli Manning 86 137 1,179 62.8 8.6 13.7 3 3 5 88.4
Joe Flacco 79 137 982 57.7 7.2 12.4 6 3 5 85.5
Ryan Fitzpatrick 83 115 936 72.2 8.1 11.3 1 4 3 84.5
Philip Rivers 88 140 1,160 62.9 8.3 13.2 5 6 7 83
Matt Hasselbeck 58 106 858 54.7 8.1 14.8 3 2 3 83
Drew Brees 118 166 1,201 71.1 7.2 10.2 3 6 3 82.4
Michael Vick 79 127 1,000 62.2 7.9 12.7 3 5 5 78.2
Andy Dalton 52 85 550 61.2 6.5 10.6 2 2 7 78.1
Mark Sanchez 69 105 830 65.7 7.9 12.0 1 4 8 77.1
Cam Newton 83 141 1,142 58.9 8.1 13.8 1 5 10 72.5
Kevin Kolb 38 71 574 53.5 8.1 15.1 2 4 6 66.3
Curtis Painter 44 78 555 56.4 7.1 12.6 2 4 3 65.9
Matt Cassel 54 90 628 60.0 7.0 11.6 2 5 4 65.4
Rex Grossman 51 82 705 62.2 8.6 13.8 0 5 1 64.3
Josh Freeman 81 136 909 59.6 6.7 11.2 3 8 6 62.4
Tarvaris Jackson 57 95 646 60.0 6.8 11.3 2 6 5 61.1
Sam Bradford 58 105 613 55.2 5.8 10.6 0 3 9 60.5
Ben Roethlisberger 66 113 716 58.4 6.3 10.8 0 5 7 58.7
Blaine Gabbert 35 72 395 48.6 5.5 11.3 1 2 3 58.5

Steelers 1st & 10 Pass Targets

RECEIVER TARG REC COMP % YDS FD TD
Isaac Redman 4 3 75% 16 1 0
Heath Miller 17 12 71% 143 7 0
Rashard Mendenhall 10 7 70% 29 0 0
Hines Ward 16 11 69% 124 5 0
David Johnson 6 4 67% 22 0 0
Mike Wallace 22 14 64% 192 9 0
Mewelde Moore 2 1 50% 8 0 0
Jerricho Cotchery 4 2 50% 30 2 0
Emmanuel Sanders 11 5 45% 71 4 0
Antonio Brown 19 7 37% 81 5 0
To Top