Given that the third preseason game is the most important of the four, it might stand to reason that the statistical data pulled from said game should be the most important data set as well. Whether or not that is true for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game against the Colts, I suppose you can decide for yourself.
- This is the first game in which they really consciously used the no-huddle. Both Ben Roethlisberger (on his second of two drives) and Landry Jones (on his second and third drives utilized it, the latter in the two-minute offense.
- Unsurprisingly, Roethlisberger worked relatively little under center, just five of 16 snaps, all but one of them being a run, and the one that wasn’t ended up being a sack.
- Jones got relatively little work under center as well, 19 of 52 snaps. Again, the majority of them were runs and he, too, managed to get sacked.
- While it was skewed fairly significantly by the fact that they were trailing, especially late in each half, the Steelers used 11 personnel the most that they have so far this preseason, 59 of 77 snaps, greater than three quarters of their total snaps. I wouldn’t necessarily project this workload for an average during the regular season.
- While Justin Hunter barely played—just two snaps—he did see both of them with Sammie Coates also on the field.
- The Steelers gave Martavis Bryant a greater workload than I had realized. Of the team’s first 44 offensive snaps, he played 42 of them before coming off the field for the rest of the game midway through the third quarter.
- Speaking of Bryant, I find it infinitely intriguing the extent to which the team is getting him work in the slot. This bears worth for its own topic, but I’ll just note that he was used in the slot six times, and three of those came on running plays. While it was not the majority, he also saw a lot of snaps in two-receiver sets, so in more three-receiver sets, he could figure in the slot more.
- The Steelers gave Knile Davis a very extensive workload, and James Conner very little. Clearly they wanted to see all they could out of the rookie in the second game, so they could get a better look at their veteran backs against better competition.
- Apparently the Steelers are back to barely using play action again.
- You’ve probably already seen this noted elsewhere on the site, but the contrast between Coates’ workload and Hunter’s is stark. The former played nearly 50 snaps, the latter two.
- When Roethlisberger left the field, Antonio Brown was replaced by Darrius Heyward-Bey (though Bryant was the mainstay receiver) and Eli Rogers was replaced by JuJu Smith-Schuster. After the latter’s injury, of course, Rogers had to finish out the first half.
- For those worrying about the rookie, he played 29 snaps in the second half.
- The Steelers gave the starting offensive line a full half’s work of work. The only backup who was spelled was J. Finney at center, who gave way to Kyle Friend. Interestingly, Chris Hubbard did not play as they get looks at other players. That’s a good sign for him; they’ve seen more than enough.
