Charting Notes From The Steelers Preseason Opener Against Lions

Before we start heavily previewing the Pittsburgh Steelers second preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles, I thought I would pass along a few notes that stuck out to me from our charting of the team’s Friday night loss to the Detroit Lions.

According to our game charting, the Lions only brought 5 or more rushers 8 times against the Steelers. If you throw out the one 4-yard gain that was wiped out by a penalty, the offense gained 16 yards on those remaining 7 plays.

Quarterbacks Landry Jones and Dustin Vaughan both attempted 6 throws of 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage against the Lions. Jones completed just one of those passes which was the deep touchdown to wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey. It should be noted. however, that Heyward-Bey looked like he dropped one deep pass early on in the game. Vaughan, on the other hand, completed two of his passes that traveled 10 yards or more and both went to wide receiver Cobi Hamilton. One of those completions, however, was canceled out by a holding call.

Steelers defensive coordinator Keith Butler blitzed 36.5% of the passes Friday night. 41.7% in first half (15/36). According to Alex Kozora, that blitz percentage was more than what he did in 11 regular season games last year.

On the six explosive plays of 20 yards or more that the Steelers defense gave up Friday night, 98 yards were gained after the catch. Additionally, only one of those 6 passes traveled more than 8 yards past the original line of scrimmage and two of those plays ended in touchdowns for the Lions. Those six plays totaled 147 yards from scrimmage.

11 of the 49 total snaps that rookie Sean Davis played against the Lions consisted of him playing safety. The rest of his snaps came as the nickel defender.

Below is a breakdown of the offensive line combinations used by the Steelers against the Lions.

If you would like me to look something up for you on offense or defense. let me know in the comments and I might add it to this post.