The initial snap counts from the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday night regular season opener loss against the New England Patriots are now in and they are listed below along with a few observations from each position group. We will verify the counts during our weekly play charting.
Offensive linemen: Four of the five starters played the entire game and that’s not a bit surprising. The one player that didn’t finish, center Maurkice Pouncey (54), left late in the game with an ankle injury. He was replaced by backup B.J. Finney (15). The bigger news Sunday night with the offensive linemen happened pregame when it was announced that Zach Banner (0) was dressing over Chukwuma Okorafor. While Banner did dress, he did not play any Sunday night and not even as an extra tight end.
Wide receivers: Rookie Diontae Johnson (25) dressed Sunday night as did Johnny Holton (8), who was promoted from the practice squad on Saturday. JuJu Smith-Schuster (62) and Donte Moncrief (62) both played the same amount of snaps with Ryan Switzer (46) logging the third-most. The Steelers dressed six wide receivers in total.
Running backs: James Conner (32) was spelled quite a bit by Jaylen Samuels (23) Sunday night and the two were even on the field at the same time for at least two plays. Rookie Benny Snell Jr. only saw special teams action in his first NFL game. Roosevelt Nix (0) did not play a single offensive snap.
Tight ends: Vance McDonald (49) wasn’t used in the passing game until the fourth quarter. Xavier Grimble (2) was mainly used on special teams while rookie Zach Gentry was inactive.
Quarterbacks: Ben Roethlisberger (69) played the entire game with Mason Rudolph (0) being dressed for the first time ever as the No. 2.
Defensive linemen: Cameron Heyward (52) led the way with Stephon Tuitt (46) not too far behind. Tyson Alualu (29) and Javon Hargrave (26) both saw the field more than 25 plays while Daniel McCullers (9) saw limited playing time late.
Inside linebackers: Rookie first-round pick Devin Bush (53) started and played quite a bit. Mark Barron (48) predictably played a lot and Vince Williams (22) also saw a lot of base personnel playing time.
Outside linebackers: Bud Dupree (62) and T.J. Watt (59) both started and played most of the game with the latter leaving in the fourth quarter with a hip injury. He was relieved by Anthony Chickillo (19). Olasunkanmi Adeniyi (0) only saw special teams action Sunday night.
Cornerbacks: Joe Haden (69) missed one snap due to injury while fellow starter Steven Nelson (70) played the entire game. Artie Burns (1) played the one snap Haden missed. Sub package players Mike Hilton (48) and Cameron Sutton (17) saw their expected amounts of respective playing time.
Safeties: Kameron Kelly (70) started in place of the injured Sean Davis and he and fellow starer Terrell Edmunds (70) played every defensive snap.
| PLAYER | POS | OFFENSIVE SNAPS | DEFENSIVE SNAPS | SPECIAL TEAM SNAPS | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R.Foster | G | 69 | 100% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| M.Feiler | T | 69 | 100% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| D.DeCastro | G | 69 | 100% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| A.Villanueva | T | 69 | 100% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| B.Roethlisberger | QB | 69 | 100% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| J.Smith-Schuster | WR | 62 | 90% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| D.Moncrief | WR | 62 | 90% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| M.Pouncey | C | 54 | 78% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| V.McDonald | TE | 49 | 71% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| R.Switzer | WR | 46 | 67% | 0 | 0% | 11 | 42% |
| J.Washington | WR | 36 | 52% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| J.Conner | RB | 32 | 46% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| D.Johnson | WR | 25 | 36% | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| J.Samuels | RB | 23 | 33% | 0 | 0% | 17 | 65% |
| B.Finney | C | 15 | 22% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 4% |
| J.Holton | WR | 8 | 12% | 0 | 0% | 10 | 38% |
| X.Grimble | TE | 2 | 3% | 0 | 0% | 7 | 27% |
| K.Kelly | S | 0 | 0% | 70 | 100% | 15 | 58% |
| T.Edmunds | S | 0 | 0% | 70 | 100% | 8 | 31% |
| S.Nelson | CB | 0 | 0% | 70 | 100% | 7 | 27% |
| J.Haden | CB | 0 | 0% | 69 | 99% | 6 | 23% |
| B.Dupree | OLB | 0 | 0% | 62 | 89% | 7 | 27% |
| T.Watt | OLB | 0 | 0% | 59 | 84% | 4 | 15% |
| D.Bush | ILB | 0 | 0% | 53 | 76% | 1 | 4% |
| C.Heyward | DT | 0 | 0% | 52 | 74% | 6 | 23% |
| M.Hilton | CB | 0 | 0% | 48 | 69% | 3 | 12% |
| M.Barron | ILB | 0 | 0% | 48 | 69% | 0 | 0% |
| S.Tuitt | DE | 0 | 0% | 46 | 66% | 4 | 15% |
| T.Alualu | DE | 0 | 0% | 29 | 41% | 5 | 19% |
| J.Hargrave | NT | 0 | 0% | 26 | 37% | 1 | 4% |
| V.Williams | ILB | 0 | 0% | 22 | 31% | 10 | 38% |
| A.Chickillo | OLB | 0 | 0% | 19 | 27% | 21 | 81% |
| C.Sutton | CB | 0 | 0% | 17 | 24% | 6 | 23% |
| D.McCullers | NT | 0 | 0% | 9 | 13% | 7 | 27% |
| A.Burns | CB | 0 | 0% | 1 | 1% | 10 | 38% |
| U.Gilbert | ILB | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 23 | 88% |
| R.Nix | FB | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 18 | 69% |
| T.Matakevich | ILB | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 18 | 69% |
| J.Dangerfield | S | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 17 | 65% |
| O.Adeniyi | OLB | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 13 | 50% |
| B.Snell | RB | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 9 | 35% |
| K.Canaday | LS | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 6 | 23% |
| J.Berry | P | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 6 | 23% |
| C.Boswell | K | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 3 | 12% |
