With the Pittsburgh Steelers three quarters of the way through their season now, it’s time to take a moment and evaluate what they have been doing on offense up to this point through the first 12 games.
- Personnel groupings:
- 00: 1/ 860 (0.12%)
- 01: 66/860 (7.67%)
- 11: 585/860 (68.02%)
- 12: 80/860 (9.30%)
- 13: 33/860 (3.84%)
- 22: 75/860 (8.72%)
- 23: 10/860 (1.16%)
- V-32: 9/860 (1.05%)
- FG: 1/860 (0.12%)
- As you can gather, the prevailing trends have carried over throughout the year. The Steelers still spend an extreme amount of time with three or more receivers on the field. in fact, it’s up to nearly 76 percent of the time now, and almost eight percent of the total snaps have come with at least four receivers on the field.
- The years of 01 personnel (and even one snap with 00 personnel) has been something that has interested me throughout the season. It had previously only been something the team turned to either due to injuries or in desperate situations, but it’s become a more proactive supplement to their usual mode of operations this year.
- And it’s been reasonable effective. Without adjusting for non-plays due to penalties, the Steelers have averaged 5.7 yards per play out of the 01 personnel set. That includes two touchdowns, and what should have been a third if not for a holding call all the way back in week one.
- At this point, Matt Feiler has logged more snaps than Marcus Gilbert, 412 to 368. It’s a similar situation to last season with Chris Hubbard, only this time the injury component is even more serious. Gilbert is set to miss his seventh consecutive game due to injury and eighth overall.
- more splits: James Washington logged 217 snaps before the bye week. He’s played 171 since, and that includes two games as a healthy scratch. Ryan Switzer has played 142 snaps since the bye week and only 55 before that.
- out of 588 dropbacks, the Steelers (almost entirely Ben Roethlisberger have used play action a whopping 66 times, or a whopping 11.22 percent of the time. It’s the lowest percentage in the entire league. The Steelers have used play-action on the fewest dropbacks while also having the most dropbacks.
- There isn’t a compelling case to use it more. Their 6.5 yards per play (not per pass attempt is almost half a yard worse than without play action. It’s also produced two touchdowns and two interceptions, but also includes Xavier Grimble’s goal line fumble.
- In contrast, teams have blitzed on 126 dropbacks, or 21.4 percent of the time. While defenses have had some successes, it hasn’t slowed the offense down. The team averages 7.6 yards per play with five touchdowns to three interceptions, and it’s only gotten the defense four sacks, even if a couple were strip sacks.
- Average depth of target: 7.85 (554 targets)
- Vance McDonald: 5.34 (58 targets)
- Darrius Heyward–Bey: 8.67 (3 targets)
- Xavier Grimble: 8.33 (6 targets)
- Antonio Brown: 11.10 (146 targets)
- Jesse James: 8.54 (39 targets)
- Roosevelt Nix: 2.25 (4 targets)
- Jaylen Samuels: -.67 (9 targets)
- James Conner: -.14 (70 targets)
- Stevan Ridley: 2.25 (4 targets)
- JuJu Smith–Schuster: 9.05 (123 targets)
- James Washington: 14.92 (27 targets)
- Justin Hunter: 15.79 (14 targets)
- Ryan Switzer: 5.48 (40 targets)
- Alejandro Villanueva: 2 (1 target)
