The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off of their first victory of the regular season, having gone on the road and taken down the unbeaten Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were able to do so on the strength of a strong first half, but the offense failed to score in the second half—which the defense gave up 17 points.
- Personnel groupings:
- 01: 5/67 (7.5%)
- 11: 37/67 (55.2%)
- 12: 12/67 (17.9%)
- 13: 1/67 (1.5%)
- 22: 9/67 (13.4%)
- V-32: 3/67 (4.5%)
- As you can see, the Steelers utilized three- and four-receiver packages significantly less than they did a week ago. They did so nearly 90 percent of the time against the Kansas City Chiefs, but they did spend most of the game trailing.
- This week, they did play with three or more receivers on the field more than 60 percent of the time, but fell short of two thirds of their total snaps. The league has been trending in that direction over the years, with many teams regularly playing with three receivers over 75 percent of the time or more.
- In contrast to last season, the Steelers have continued to make use of the 01 package beyond the opener. As noted above, they still used it on five snaps against the Buccaneers, and given that they played about 20 fewer total snaps than they had in either of the first two games, the percentage was still relatively high.
- Running backs not named James Conner are still not playing very much. Stevan Ridley played five snaps against the Buccaneers, getting touches on three of those five snaps, but Conner still saw the field for 57 of the team’s 67 snaps, which is just over 85 percent.
- In the game, Antonio Brown played every snap until the final three, in victory formation. JuJu Smith-Schuster very rarely came off the field as well. He played 54 snaps, or every snap the Steelers played with more than one receiver on the field.
- OF Ryan Switzer’s eight snaps during the game, five of them came lined up in the backfield. In contrast to the first two weeks of the season, he didn’t get any carries, but he was targeted once from that alignment.
- After flirting with the potential of using play-action more in the season opener, Ben Roethlisberger has reverted back to his league-low norm. He only used play-action on three of 43 dropbacks in Tampa. He only completed one of those passes, though for 18 yards.
- The Buccaneers blitzed only twice on third down. On third and six, they recorded a tackle at the line of scrimmage. On third and 10, they gave up a 75-yard touchdown.
- Average depth of target: 7.9 (40 targets; 38 official)
- Vance McDonald: 9 (5 targets)
- Xavier Grimble: 23 (1 target)
- Antonio Brown: 8.6 (10 targets; 9 official)
- Jesse James: 3 (1 target)
- James Conner: 1.2 (6 targets)
- JuJu Smith-Schuster: 10.2 (12 targets; 11 official)
- James Washington: 12.5 (2 targets)
- Ryan Switzer: 1.7 (3 targets)
