It’s that time again. Time to get back to breaking down the Pittsburgh Steelers offense by dissecting our weekly charting notes. And because we are now halfway through the season, tomorrow I will be bringing you the overall midseason report on how they have conducted their business so far this year.
- Personnel groupings:
- 11: 50/73 (68.5%)
- 12: 13/73 (17.8%)
- 13: 4/73 (5.5%)
- 21: 5/73 (6.8%)
- V-32: 1/73 (1.4%)
- So, obviously, the 11 personnel dominated in this game, but you can probably guess why. The fact is that over half of the Steelers’ offensive snaps came in the fourth quarter, when they were trailing by 13 or more points. The fact is that after they went down by 21 points, they logged 33 snaps, 32 of which came out of the 11. So there you go.
- What is interesting is that there was a fairly healthy variety of looks out of the 11, mostly with Sammie Coates and Cobi Hamilton being alternated, though the former getting the lion’s share.
- On the subject of Hamilton, of his 19 snaps, nine of them actually came out of the 12 or 21 packages with only two wide receivers on the field. One was a penalty and three were running plays.
- For as much was made about Darrius Heyward-Bey being named a ‘starter’, he really wasn’t. He was not on the field for the first snap of the game. He was for four of the next five snaps, but then he was on the sideline for 14 consecutive snaps before he came on for the deep target on which he injured his foot. He played on less than a quarter of the offensive snaps leading up to his injury.
- As I wrote about earlier in the week, Xavier Grimble logged more snaps than Jesse James (I have the snap count at 44 to 33), but it’s interesting to note when Grimble’s snaps came. He logged all 33 snaps the offense played after they went down 21-0. James played one snap. Apparently the Steelers feel better about Grimble on the field when the team is desperate and trailing than they do about James. Which, to me, tells me how much they’re looking forward to getting Ladarius Green
- Running back Le’Veon Bell only took off three snaps, playing 70, and 12 of them came at wide receiver.
- For the first time this season, David Johnson actually logged time as the lone tight end on the field. He saw two snaps as the lone tight end. He also saw three as one of two tight ends, including Chris Hubbard as a tackle-eligible.
- The Ravens were not particularly successful blitzing. On 10 blitzes—eight five-man blitzes—the Steelers completed six passes for 63 yards. But on the four other plays, three were incomplete passes on third or fourth down, and they also netted a sack for a loss of 12.
- The majority of the game was played out of the no-huddle. 27 snaps came after they fell behind by 21. 16 came before then.
- Average depth of target – 12.4
- Antonio Brown – 12.2 (13 targets)
- Sammie Coates – 29.8 (5 targets)
- Eli Rogers – 13.4 (10 targets)
- Darrius Heyward-Bey – 38.5 (2 targets)
- Cobi Hamilton – 36 (1 target)
- Jesse James – 5.4 (5 targets)
- Xavier Grimble – 1 (1 target)
- David Johnson – 11 (2 targets)
- Le’Veon Bell – -1.1 (9 targets)
