You know, I’m starting to get pretty tired of writing these articles about the offense following losses. Had a good six weeks in a row talking about wins, but now three consecutive weeks of documenting the minutiae of losing efforts is starting to get old. Let’s hope that Sunday is a time for change in that regard.
- Personnel groupings:
- 01: 4/60 (6.7%)
- 11: 42/60 (70.0%)
- 12: 7/60 (11.7%)
- 13: 3/60 (5.0%)
- 21: 1/60 (1.7%)
- 22: 2/60 (3.3%)
- 23: 1/60 (1.7%)
- This is literally the first time all season that the Steelers actually ran a play out of the 21 personnel formation, which features two wide receivers, a two running backs, and one tight end. Just an odd quirk. And of course it came with Joshua Dobbs in the game, for one play. He threw an interception.
- They also managed to use pretty much every possible major lineup combination, short of having five wide receivers on the field or more than two running backs. Though in most cases it was for only three or fewer snaps, this was the most ‘diverse’ offensive game of the season in terms of personnel groupings used.
- But it’s not a coincidence that the vast majority of the run-heavy looks (in this case anything with fewer than three receivers on the field) game heavily skewed toward Dobbs’ playing time over Ben Roethlisberger, because they were just trying to manage the game at that point while their starter was injured on the sideline and preserve their lead.
- The Steelers used a good mixture of James Washington and Ryan Switzer throughout the game, often even swapping them out in the middle of a drive. Switzer ended up playing a bit more, a good chunk of that coming at the end of the game with the Steelers needing a score to take the lead back.
- After much debate about the split work in the backfield, Jaylen Samuels saw 87.5 percent of the running back snaps in the game, 49 to Stevan Ridley’s seven. Perhaps if the running game were more utilized it would have been slightly less lopsided. Perhaps not.
- With Dobbs in the game, the Steelers used play action five times. Roethlisberger used it twice. They ended up with a net of almost six yards per play, though, and that included a 15-yard penalty at the end of a five-yard scramble by Dobbs.
- The Oakland Raiders were content in their rush, only blitzing six times. They did force two third-down incompletions, once with Roethlisberger in the game, but the team still averaged 6.5 yards per play against the blitz.
- Average depth of target: 5.4
- Vance McDonald: -.25 (4 targets)
- Antonio Brown: 5.7 (7 targets)
- Jesse James: 10 (2 targets)
- Jaylen Samuels: -1.7 (7 targets)
- JuJu Smith–Schuster: 9.5 (13 targets)
- James Washington: 9.5 (4 targets)
- Ryan Switzer: 0 (1 target)
