The Pittsburgh Steelers keep winning games, and I keep charting them, and you keep getting to read my notes. Which are always more enjoyable to write, and I’m sure to read, after wins rather than losses. So here we go, the offensive charting notes from the Steelers’ victory over the Bengals, their seventh in a row this season.
- Personnel groupings:
- 11: 52/68 (76.5%)
- 12: 10/68 (14.7%)
- 22: 6/68 (8.8%)
- So, the Steelers were not exactly at their most diverse on Monday night when it came to their personnel groupings, at least if you only take into consideration the personnel that was on the field. They only used three different combinations, predominantly 11 because they were trailing for so much of the game, but they did have a lot of variety mixed in.
- For example, during two of the six 22 personnel snaps, the Steelers lined up Roosevelt Nix up at the line of scrimmage, and that includes the opening play of the game—on which he was flagged for a false start.
- Those were the only snaps for the fullback on the night, and they also perfectly coincided with the six snaps played by Jerald Hawkins as the tackle-eligible tight end. In case you were wondering, he got dominated on one play. He had two solid plays, however, and also, uh…ran a route down the seam.
- Also in use was the empty set, employed six times during the game. It yielded three incompletions—including a drop—but also receptions of 10, 11, and 15 yards. Other snaps on which Le’Veon Bell lined outside of the backfield yielded gains of 20 and 30 yards. Many of these snaps included Bell and Antonio Brown being stacked.
- The popular run of the night was to pull both Maurkice Pouncey and David DeCastro around right end. At one point they literally ran it three times in a row, and five times in all, for a total of 37 yards—plus a personal foul for 15 more.
- The Bengals hardly blitzed at all throughout the game. I counted just two instances of a blitz, the first of which did help contribute to Ben Roethlisberger’s lone interception at the end of the Steelers’ opening drive. The second blitz—two blitzers with a lineman dropping—was beaten for 10 yards.
- Play action was ineffective, used three times for three incompletions—one busted, one a deep drop by Martavis Bryant, and one thrown away, though it drew a roughing the passer.
- Average depth of target: 10.6 (42 targets; 41 official)
- Xavier Grimble – 8.7 (3 targets)
- Antonio Brown – 15.8 (16 targets; 15 official)
- Jesse James – 8 (2 targets)
- Roosevelt Nix – 0 (1 target)
- Le’Veon Bell – .7 (6 targets)
- JuJu Smith–Schuster – 6.4 (5 targets)
- Eli Rogers – 11 (2 targets)
- Martavis Bryant – 15.4 (7 targets)
