Article

Steelers’ 2021 Defensive Charting – First 13 Games

By Alex Kozora

Posted on December 17, 2021 at 11:30 am

Updating our defensive charting as we do every four weeks. We’ll look at these numbers one last time once the regular season wraps up. Let’s see what the new data tells us.

– Excluding no-plays and kneeldowns, this is out of 836 defensive snaps.

– Knowing that, they are on pace to log 1093 snaps this year. That’s up from their pace of 1069 when we looked at things four games ago. If they reach that number, it’ll be the most amount of snaps from this defense since 2015 when they logged 1102. Of course, this is a 17-game season so this number actually isn’t too bad. If this was a 16-game season, they would be on pace for only 1028 snaps, about 30 more than 2020.

– Here’s their personnel groupings on the year:

Nickel: 44.2% (370 snaps)
3-4: 35.6% (298 snaps)
Dime: 18.1% (151 snaps)
3-5: 2.0% (17 snaps)

– Dime has fallen the most since our last charting by about two points. Nickel went up a point while 3-4 is virtually the same. The 3-5 is new to this list, used more in recent weeks. Overall, the team’s sub-package rate is only 62.3% a relatively low amount for them. They have had three defensive linemen on the field 37.6% of the time, a reminder that base defense is not dead. If anything, it’s bouncing back a bit from where it was at several years ago.

– The Steelers have run a “big” personnel grouping in 3-4 or 3-5 with three safeties in the game (always Miles Killebrew) 20 times this season, or 2.4% of the time. Those packages have all come since Week 8.

– Prior to the Melvin Ingram trade, the team used a 1-4-6 dime grouping with three OLBs on the field 18 times. Since his trade, they’ve used it only three snaps and not since the Lions’ game Week 10. That was a package to get better pass rushers on the field especially with Stephon Tuitt not out there.

– Pittsburgh has blitzed 27.2% of the time this season. That’s up from 25% when we looked at things four games ago. Here’s the weekly data.

Week 1 (Bills): 13.2%
Week 2 (Raiders): 30.0%
Week 3 (Bengals): 31.6%
Week 4 (Packers): 30.6%
Week 5 (Broncos): 31.5%
Week 6 (Seahawks): 43.8%
Week 8 (Browns): 14.7%
Week 9 (Bears): 21.6%
Week 10 (Lions): 23.1%
Week 11 (Chargers): 25%
Week 12 (Bengals): 25%
Week 13 (Ravens): 37.5%
Week 14 (Vikings): 30%

Just twice this season have the Steelers blitzed more than one-third of the time in a game, Seattle and Baltimore. Last year, they did it seven times.

– On the season, the Steelers are blitzing 5+ exactly 25% of the time. That’s down over ten points, 35.6% in 2020. Here are the week-by-week figures.

Week 1 (Bills): 13.2%
Week 2 (Raiders): 30.0%
Week 3 (Bengals): 31.6%
Week 4 (Packers): 30.6%
Week 5 (Broncos): 31.5%
Week 6 (Seahawks): 43.8%
Week 8 (Browns): 14.7%
Week 9 (Bears): 21.6%
Week 10 (Lions): 23.1%
Week 11 (Chargers): 29.2%
Week 12 (Bengals): 20.8%
Week 13 (Ravens): 31.9%
Week 14 (Vikings): 36.7%

– Let’s jump into the individual numbers.

DEFENSIVE LINE

Pressures

Cam Heyward: 31
Chris Wormley: 16
Isaiahh Loudermilk: 4
Tyson Alualu: 3
Montravius Adams: 2
Henry Mondeaux: 2
Isaiah Buggs: 1

– Snaps per pressure:

Alualu: 12.7
Heyward: 13.5
Adams: 16.0
Wormley: 20.3
Loudermilk: 20.5
Mondeaux: 43
Buggs: 88

– Heyward and Wormley leading the way in pressures, though Wormley’s pressure rate is pretty middling. Barley better than Loudermilk’s. Alualu still ranks fourth among d-linemen in pressures. Loudermilk is really a base, run-stuffing player. 41.9% of his total snaps have been in base or 3-5 while just 51.3% of his snaps have been pass attempts. Compare that to Chris Wormley (55.7%) and Cam Heyward (59.9%).

– A broad stat that doesn’t tell the whole story, I know, but YPC allowed when on the field. For context, the Steelers as a team is allowing 4.97 YPC this year.

Loudermilk: 3.5
Adams: 4.6
Heyward: 4.6
Wormley: 5.0
Buggs: 5.6
Mondeaux: 6.1
Archibong: 8.0 (just 7 snaps)

LINEBACKERS

Pressures

TJ Watt: 38
Alex Highsmith: 19
Taco Charlton: 8
Devin Bush: 5
Derrek Tuszka: 2
Joe Schobert: 2

– Snaps per pressure:

Watt: 7.4
Charlton: 9.3
Highsmith: 16.6
Tuszka: 31.5

Watt’s numbers continue to impress. Charlton’s figure has shot up too and is actually really strong. Highsmith’s number is roughly average while Tuszka’s is poor. He should not be playing OLB for the Steelers.

– Coverage %

Highsmith: 9.5%
Watt: 9.9%
Charlton: 17.8%
Tuszka: 18.2%

– YPC allowed when on the field:

Tuszka: 4.6
Schobert: 4.7
Bush: 4.9
Highsmith: 4.9
Charlton: 4.9
Watt: 5.0

Surprisingly, all these numbers are really clumped together.

– Target data for the LBs:

Devin Bush: 17/23 197 yards 2 TDs 1 INT
Joe Schobert: 13/22 151 yards 1 TD 0 INTs
Robert Spillane: 4/5 37 yards 0 TDs 0 INTs

– QB rating against:

Schobert: 95.1
Spillane: 97.5
Bush: 110.2

Secondary

– Target numbers:

Cam Sutton: 33/42 494 yards 3 TDs 0 INTs
James Pierre: 22/34 328 yards 3 TDs 1 INT
Joe Haden: 14/27 182 yards 1 TD 0 INT
Minkah Fitzpatrick: 14/26 227 yards 2 TDs 3 INTs
Terrell Edmunds: 9/22 82 yards 2 TDs 0 INTs
Tre Norwood: 17/21 196 yards 2 TDs 0 INTs
Ahkello Witherspoon: 5/13 61 yards 0 TDs 1 INT
Arthur Maulet: 6/9 96 yards 1 TD 0 INTs
Justin Layne: 3/4 17 yards 0 TDs 0 INTs