It’s getting late in the week, so we’d better do this now. Offensive charting notes for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ victory on Sunday over the Bengals, a victory that puts him in position to secure the AFC North title for themselves tomorrow against the Ravens with a win on Christmas, a present to all of Steeler Nation.
- Personnel formations:
- 11: 46/76 (60.5%)
- 12: 7/76 (9.2%)
- 13: 8/76 (10.5%)
- 21: 1/76 (1.3%)
- 22: 11/76 (14.5%)
- V-32: 3/76 (4%)
- As you can see, the Steelers used a lot more 11 personnel than they had been in the previous four games, but, of course, you can probably guess that had a lot to do with the fact that they spent most of the game coming from behind. They trailed by as much as 20-6 in the first half, and didn’t grab the lead until several minutes into the fourth quarter.
- And sure enough, all but four of the 11 personnel snaps came prior to that go-ahead score. The Steelers did mix in more and versatile formations as they got closer to drawing even with each passing field goal. 17 of 44 meaningful second-half snaps came with one or two receivers on the field, including 14 of their final 27 meaningful plays on their last three drives.
- Fullback Roosevelt Nix got 15 snaps in the game, including victory formation. Nine of them came on the final drive.
- Here is something interesting to note: Chris Hubbard got a couple of snaps in the 11 personnel package. Two, to be precise, and one of them came on the play after Ladarius Green suffered a concussion, but the other one was in the second quarter.
- Another thing worth noting is that Xavier Grimble played eight snaps for the Steelers in the game, and only one of them came after Green’s injury. In fact, that was his only snap on which Green wasn’t also on the field with him. So apparently they were excited about using them together. Interesting.
- Against the Bengals, Cobi Hamilton saw a lot of his playing time being replaced by Sammie Coates getting back into the offense. This week, he may see his snaps eaten up by Demarcus Ayers, and maybe even a few snaps from Darrius Heyward-Bey, who is questionable for tomorrow.
- On to play-action. Though the Steelers didn’t use no-huddle at all, according to the official logs, they did use play-action a fair bit. 12 times on 44 dropbacks, over 27 percent, which I’m confident is the most this season. Unfortunately, it wasn’t overly successful, with Roethlisberger going 5-for-12 for 74 yards. Three of the incompletions resulted in penalties, but the penalty yardage is factored into those 74 yards.
- Although Roethlisberger got his touchdown against a blitz, the Bengals did better than most teams have against him this year. On nine blitzes, Roethlisberger completed four of nine passes for 55 yards. That also included Green’s big catch late.
- Average depth of target: 11.6
- Antonio Brown – 19 (9 targets)
- Eli Rogers – 11.8 (6 targets)
- Sammie Coates – 29.6 (5 targets)
- Cobi Hamilton – 18.5 (2 targets)
- Le’Veon Bell – -1.2 (10 targets)
- Ladarius Green – 9.9 (8 targets)
- Xavier Grimble – -1 (1 target)
- David Johnson – 12 (1 target)
- Jesse James – 7 (1 target)
