Welcome to your weekly Pittsburgh Steelers “stat pack,” five numbers you need to know to get ready for the team’s upcoming game. They could relate to the opponent, the Steelers themselves, and could involve an individual, unit, or something else. All to help you become the smartest fan for gameday.
12.6
That’s the number of actual offensive points the Steelers are averaging this season, excluding their two defensive touchdowns and Miles Killebrew’s blocked punt/safety. A dreadful number, obviously. Last year, the Steelers averaged 17.7 points per game on offense, taking out Minkah Fitzpatrick’s pick-six. Somehow, this team finds ways to regress year-over-year and it’s the biggest criticism that can be leveled against OC Matt Canada.
44.4, 44.1
According to Pro Football Reference, those are the run success rates for RBs Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren, respectively. In essence, they’re identical. Harris has had better games than Warren and vice versa. But it shows that both players are needed to try to help this run game produce. Harris doesn’t need all the touches nor does Warren. It’s a true timeshare backfield and the roles each are in suit them and this offense the best even if the overall production must increase.
14
The number of receptions by Steelers’ tight ends this season. Pat Freiermuth has eight grabs (granted, he’s missed the last five quarters with injury), Connor Heyward has five, and Darnell Washington has one. It’s an average of 2.8 receptions per game this season, a big drop from 2022 when Steelers’ tight ends caught 94, an average of 5.5 per game. They need to be more involved on the other side of the bye and without Diontae Johnson for the last month, it’s surprising their production has been so limited.
58.7
Kenny Pickett’s expected completion percentage, per NextGenStats. That effectively takes into consideration catch probability and drops. It’s one point lower than his season completion percentage of 59.7 percent. The xCOMP is the lowest in football, even below the New York Jets’ Zach Wilson, the only other quarterback below 61 percent. On the high side, Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes at 69.7 percent, ten points higher than Pickett. Overall, Pickett’s accuracy has not been quite as strong as advertised coming out of Pitt.
Three
That’s the number of games the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting offensive line has missed this season. One by LT Dan Moore Jr., two by RG James Daniels. Compared to last year when the team went the entire season without any of their starters missing a game.
Of course, Moore and Daniels have had their struggles this year and they’re not players being incredibly missed by the team, especially given LT Broderick Jones’ impressive first start against Baltimore. But we knew the team would deal with injuries upfront they didn’t experience a season ago. And they are.
Bonus: 139
The pace Minkah Fitzpatrick is on for 2023 tackles. If you didn’t know, that is a lot of tackles. In the miserable 2021 season when it felt like Fitzpatrick had to do everything, he finished that year with 124. So Fitzpatrick is on pace to easily surpass that number in 2023. Yuck.
If he ends the year with 139, it would be the second-most by a Steeler since tackles were tracked in 1987. The current record is held by LB James Farrior, who ended the 2003 season with 141 of them. For Pittsburgh’s sake, hopefully Fitzpatrick doesn’t get near that mark.
