Sigh.
These articles are supposed to be fun. Lot less exciting when it comes off a loss. But lots of weird that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
– The Pittsburgh Steelers are now 0-2 on the season. That sounds terrible because, well, it is, but the team has weirdly dug themselves out of that type of hole before.
Since 1989 and until today, they’ve started the year 0-2 four times. Three of those times, they made the playoffs. 1989, 1993, and 2002. They failed to do so in their most recent instance, 2013, where they began 0-4 but clawed their way back to an 8-8 finish.
– Here’s my favorite happy stat to share with you guys.
Benny Snell’s first NFL carry was on 3rd and 1 and went for 23 yards.
Benny Snell’s first college carry was on 3rd and 1 and went for 18 yards.
And @KY_Clips was kind enough to share that UK play with us.
It is difficult to find exact data but as far as I can tell, Snell’s 23 yard run was the longest first carry by a Steelers’ RB I can find. Better than Le’Veon Bell, Rashard Mendenhall, Willie Parker, Franco Harris, and several other names I checked.
– There’s been three QBs in Steelers history to throw two touchdown passes in their NFL debut.
Terry Hanratty: 1969
Ben Roethlisberger: 2004
And Mason Rudolph, 2019.
Let’s hope his career is much more Big Ben than it is Hanratty.
– Through two games, Ryan Switzer is averaging 4.1 yards per reception. Seven grabs for 29 yards. Heading into Week 2, there were 22 running backs averaging more per rush.
– Heading into today, since 2000 the Steelers were 77-7 when winning the turnover battle and forcing at least two takeaways. Now you can make it 77-8. They had previously won 14 of their last 15 such games, the only other loss being a 27-16 defeat to the New England Patriots in 2016.
– Steelers have put up just 29 points their first two weeks, their fewest since 2013.
– They’ve also allowed 61, only the second time that’s happened since 2000. The other time? Last year, when they gave up 63 to Cleveland and Kansas City.
– Donte Moncrief has 11 targets this year. He has five drops and only three receptions.
– The current box score is crediting Stephon Tuitt with 2.5 sacks against Seattle, a single-game high for him. It’s also more than any game he had in college either. So banner day for him.
– It’s been almost two years the Steelers have allowed a 35+ yard rushing TD as they gave up to Rashaad Penny today. The previous one was Leonard Fournette’s 90 yard end-game score in October of 2017.
– Through two weeks, the Steelers have gone 3-12 and 3-11 on third down, a combined 6-23. That’s 26%. Only once since Kevin Colbert took over in 2000 has the team been that bad. That came in 2010, when they went 6/29. The difference than was they managed to win both of those games.
