Following a great conversation between Dave Bryan and Alex Kozora on The Terrible Podcast, I’m here to provide data on yards after catch (YAC) per completion for NFL teams the last five years. The main goal is to see how the well-documented struggles that Pittsburgh had in this regard in 2022 compares to the rest of the league, how the stat correlates to team success, and see if there are any trends and/or takeaways moving forward.
Let’s jump right in:
There is a lot of great information to take in here. Through Steelers’ lenses first, we can see there has been a clear down trend in yards after catch the last five years in Pittsburgh (gold line). The 2018 season produced the Steelers’ best result by far, with a 5.8 YAC/Comp number, which impressively ranked sixth best out of the 160 NFL offenses in the time frame.
In 2019, they were still above league average (just shy of 4.5) at 4.8, which ranked 45th, despite an injury-riddled season for the quarterbacks when Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges played substantial snaps. Then the Steelers had an average result of 4.5 in 2020 (67th), the first season in the era to make the postseason. They achieved this again in 2021 despite it being their first campaign below the league mean in YAC (4.3, 85th). It is important context that the two playoff years for the Steelers were Roethlisberger’s final two seasons, when the offense became more conservative and leaned on a shorter passing game at the end of his career. So multiple factors need to be considered, but we can see YAC didn’t lead to playoff hopes for Pittsburgh overall.
Then there’s 2022. Pittsburgh had the worst 3.3 YAC/Comp number in the NFL, which was also fourth worst in the entire five-year time frame, in rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky’s first year in the Black and Gold. Another element that is hard to deny is at offensive coordinator, with Matt Canada holding those reigns the last two years, when the Steelers had their lowest outputs in YAC. Knock on wood, hopefully we see him open up the offense, getting receivers on the move to set them up with more ideal playmaking opportunities after the catch. Here’s to hoping this comes to fruition, considering the obvious improvements needed in 2023. The data gives us additional context to just how bad the YAC issue was for Pittsburgh last season, and how lucky it was to even have a chance at making the playoffs.
No offense in the time made the playoffs with a YAC/Comp result of 3.5 or less, which is the floor for what the Steelers should aim for to return to the playoffs. The standard is higher than that in Pittsburgh though, with anything less than a championship a disappointment. Looking at those Super Bowl-winning teams in the time period (logos/blue line), we see four of the five squads were above league average in YAC/Comp, with the exception being the 2020 Buccaneers (4.2). A huge takeaway is they were one of only two teams to advance to the conference championship game or beyond that were below the NFL average, with the other being Buffalo in 2020 (4.3). So, in the last five years, 90% of NFL offenses that were above the mean in YAC/Comp won a game in the postseason. Thirty-six playoff teams were above the league mean the last five years (56.3%), so not a super strong correlation to YAC punching a postseason ticket, but it is undeniably a huge factor in teams making deeper runs in the playoffs. Here’s to hoping Pittsburgh can return to these ways sooner rather than later.
What are your thoughts on the data? Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
