There are certainly a lot of things to be concerned about when it comes to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense in 2023 as offensive coordinator Matt Canada needs to get that side of the football to produce much better in several different areas and situations. While it’s easy to write a post about the offensive deficiencies from 2022 when it comes to Canada’s play-calling, I thought I would show one particular area that the unit actually excelled in last season. That area was short yardage runs by non-running backs.
Let me say that the idea for this post comes courtesy of a Monday tweet by Nate Tice of The Athletic. It was quite a simple one that made note of the Steelers leading the NFL last season in short-yardage runs (1-2 yards to go) on either third or fourth downs by wide receivers.
As Tice pointed out, the Steelers had five such rushing attempts in 2022. What his tweet does not show is that all five of those short-yardage run attempts by Steelers wide receivers were successful ones. In fact, one of those was good for a touchdown by wide receiver George Pickens and another one was good for an explosive play by wide receiver Steven Sims.
I wanted to dig deeper into Tice’s offering, however, and thus look at how many such short-yardage rushing attempts on third and fourth downs the Steelers had in 2022 by non-running backs. Quite honestly, I was surprised by my findings.
In total, the Steelers registered 28 rush attempts in 2022 by non-running backs (QB, WR, TE, FB) on third and fourth downs when needing 1 or 2 yards. Twenty-seven of those 28 rush attempts achieved either a first down or touchdown. In case you’re curious, the other touchdown was by quarterback Kenny Pickett in his NFL debut against the New York Jets in Week 4.
In total, quarterbacks had 14 of those 28 short-yardage rushing attempts on third or fourth downs for the Steelers in 2022. All 14 were successful. Fullback Derek Watt had eight such attempts with seven of them being successful ones. The other one not by a wide receiver went to tight end Connor Heyward in Week 18 against the Cleveland Browns.
Here is another remarkable fact about those 28 drilled-down short-yardage rush attempts by non-running backs last season by the Steelers: all but five of them came after the team’s Week 9 bye week. Additionally, 14 of the 28 came in the Steelers’ final four games of the season.
By now, you’re probably wondering how the Steelers running backs fared in short-yardage rush attempts in 2023. Well, they had just 14 of those in 2022 with nine being successful. One of those nine was good for a touchdown and it came courtesy of running back Benny Snell Jr.
When putting everything together, the Steelers had the best success rate in the NFL in 2022 when it came to short yardage (1-2 yards) rushes on third and fourth downs. Their success rate on 42 such runs was 86.0%. In second place were the Buffalo Bills at 82.4% on 34 such attempts.
Once again, Canada certainly has his work cut out for him in 2023 but at least when it comes to his short yardage rushing game plan, hopefully that part of the offense can have the same level of success as 2022 and no matter what position carries the football.
