Deep passing is a very important element for an effective offense in today’s NFL, a facet of the game the Pittsburgh Steelers and quarterback Kenny Pickett need to improve on in hopes for a more successful 2023 season. In this article, I will provide deep passing stats of 20 yards or more, seeing how Pickett and quarterbacks with at least 20 deep pass attempts fared in 2022.
First, here are the quarterbacks’ average depth of target (ADOT) and yards per attempt (YPA) on deep passes, along with number of attempts as their dot sizes:
Pickett lands on the bottom left of the visual, right away giving comparative context to the need to push the football down the field more and with greater success this season. More specifically, had the lowest 25.7 ADOT of the 35 qualifying quarterbacks, which was also a full yard less than any other player.
Considering the league mean in ADOT was 29.3, here’s hoping Pickett lands closer to that number this year. He fared a bit better in yards per attempt (10.1), which tied for 28th (12.7 NFL average), on 47 deep passes (T-20th), throwing for 477 yards in these situations (21st). The data so far shows the biggest room for improvement being pass distances, which I expected after charting this throughout the 2022 season.
Another important facet for quarterbacks and successful passing offenses is, of course, completion rates, which was an encouraging aspect of Pickett’s rookie season (63% on all passes). Let’s see how the quarterbacks stacked up in deep pass completion percentage and adjusted completion percentage (percentage of aimed passes thrown on target (completions + drops\aimed), which is an even better metric, in my opinion, since it takes out some of the “noise” of the overall completion rate:
Here we see Pickett fared better than the first view, with a 42.6 adjusted completion percentage on deep passes (15th). That landed just above the NFL mean (42.4), while his 38.3% completion rate (19th) was just below it (38.8%). Here’s to hoping he can improve to an above-average quarterback in these terms in 2023. That is reasonable with his accuracy being a strength already, most second-year players making a leap with more experience, and more familiarity with his receiving corps.
Scoring and turnovers are, of course, the biggest momentum swings to winning or losing a game, so I wanted to close by seeing how the quarterbacks fared in touchdowns and interceptions on deep passes:
This is another huge element that Pickett needs to improve on after landing on the bottom left with four touchdowns and five interceptions, which is notable compared to his totals on all passes from 2022 of seven touchdowns and nine interceptions. This is also something that is reasonable to be optimistic about, considering Pickett threw for five touchdowns with just one interception in his final eight games, with the latter being particularly encouraging. I’m sure most have you have heard the quote from offensive coordinator Matt Canada: “We need to score more points,” and the obvious statement applies to the deep passing game as well. The data gives us great comparative context to Pittsburgh’s 2022 deep passing. Here’s hoping Pickett and the Steelers offense can excel in these terms in 2023.
What are your thoughts on the deep passing data from 2022? Do you think Pickett will improve in this regard this season? Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
