It’s almost hard to believe that we are already three quarters of the way through the 2017 regular season. There are just four games left to play, and the Pittsburgh Steelers have been able to win their last seven in a row. Not much to complain about there. As we are at the third-quarter pole, however, I wanted to provide a broader view update on their offensive tendencies up to this point.
- Personnel groupings:
- 01: 12/852 (1.4%)
- 11: 604/852 (70.9%)
- 12: 94/852 (11.3%)
- 13: 12/852 (1.4%)
- 21: 21/852 (2.5%)
- 22: 91/852 (10.7%)
- 23: 2/852 (0.2%)
- V-32: 17/852 (2.0%)
- I’m sure the Steelers are quite in the average in running about 70 percent of their offense out of the 11 personnel, utilizing three wide receivers on the field accompanied by a running back and a tight end. That has become the base package for just about every team in the league at this point.
- The bulk of the rest features two or more tight ends, with only 2.5 percent of their plays being run with a fullback and yet only one tight end.
- In all, the fullback has been used on about an eighth or so of their offensive plays. I have Roosevelt Nix at 135 offensive snaps, though that includes the victory formation snaps. still, overall, that is not a terrible workload for a fullback in today’s game, though I thought he would be used more this week.
- The no huddle has not exactly been a staple of the offense so far this year, seeing usage on 16 percent of the team’s offensive snaps to date. Including penalty yardage, both positive and negative, they have averaged 5.2 yards per play using it, with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
- Right guard David DeCastro is now the only player on offense to have not missed a snap, though both Ben Roethlisberger and Maurkice Pouncey only sat out four snaps because of a blowout situation.
- Meanwhile, Antonio Brown has played nearly 94 percent of the snaps, or nearly 96 percent without the victory formation. Le’Veon Bell has played about 92 percent of the snaps, or about 93.5 percent outside of the victory formation.
- After a very strong season most of the way, Brown is now second on the team with four drops by my count, Martavis Bryant leading with five. Bell and Eli Rogers each have three, while Vance McDonald has two, and Justin Hunter and Jesse James have one.
- Roethlisberger has faced a blitz on 97 of his 491 dropbacks. The offense has averaged 6.7 yards per play when blitzed, or 6.8 when removing penalties. He threw three touchdowns and three interceptions and lost a fumble.
- Play action has only been used 45 times, less than 10 percent of the time. removing penalties, they have only averaged five yards per play, taking three sacks.
- Roethlisberger has had 11 passes batted down at the line of scrimmage this season, two of which have been intercepted.
- Average depth of target: 10 (464 targets)
- Vance McDonald – 10.8 (12 targets)
- Darrius Heyward-Bey – 24 (1 target)
- Xavier Grimble – 7.6 (5 targets)
- Antonio Brown – 14.4 (154 targets)
- Jesse James – 6.2 (46 targets)
- Roosevelt Nix – 0 (1 target)
- James Conner – -4 (1 target)
- Le’Veon Bell – 0.1 (84 targets)
- JuJu Smith–Schuster – 9.7 (59 targets)
- Eli Rogers – 8.8 (26 targets)
- Justin Hunter – 13.2 (9 targets)
- Martavis Bryant – 15.5 (66 targets)
