Your weekly defensive breakdown based off our charting notes from the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
– 65 total defensive snaps is our guide. Stephon Tuitt played 63 of those, or 97%. Cam Heyward saw 56, or 86.2%. Both are too high for my taste and Javon Hargrave needs to be rotated in more often. The rookie did not see a single snap in sub-package.
– Daniel McCullers outsnapped Hargrave and Ricardo Mathews.
– Because of injuries and rotation, no linebacker hit the 50 snap threshold.
– Due to Robert Golden’s injury, Sean Davis saw just six snaps in the slot. He played 53 at safety.
– James Harrison played only 21 snaps, less than half of what Jarvis Jones and Arthur Moats got. Granted, he only saw four snaps in the fourth quarter with the game over.
– On average, the Steelers gave up nearly nine yards of YAC per completion against the Eagles. Six of them, nearly a quarter, went for 10+ yards.
– Pittsburgh was in sub-package 64.6% of the time. In base more often because of the big lead the Eagles built up.
– 21 of the Eagles’ 65 snaps (32.3%) were in Steelers’ territory. Excluding the game-over fourth quarter and that number spikes all the way up to 42% (21 of 50). Unacceptable.
– Philadelphia was one of the league’s worst teams in 3rd and 6+ before last week. They converted on three of their seven chances Sunday, again, excluding the fourth quarter garbage time.
– Twice, the Steelers chose to stay in base against the Eagles 11 personnel. Unusual and worth monitoring.
– Keith Butler rushed five only four times Sunday. He blitzed nine though on four occasions, it was only an outside linebacker who lined up off ball who came. So barely a blitz and in their book, doesn’t even count (it does in charting, however).
– One large-picture stat to round things out. No Steelers’ defender has played 100% of the snaps this season and we’re only three weeks in.
