Pittsburgh Steelers OLB Alex Highsmith faced a favorable matchup in Week Nine, as his opponent, OT Andre Dillard, was among the NFL’s worst pass blockers heading into Thursday Night Football. Dillard entered the game with a 46.4 pass-blocking grade, per Pro Football Focus, and he might exit it with a lower one. Highsmith generated 11 pressures, nine of which came against Dillard in Pittsburgh’s 20-16 win.
Those 11 pressures give Highsmith 49 on the season, which leads the NFL, per Next Gen Stats. He also leads the NFL in a stat that’s a little more obscure but pretty important: win probability added on sacks. Pittsburgh’s win probability added on Highsmith sacks is a whopping 74%, almost 13% higher than Myles Garrett, who is in second place at 61.5%. Highsmith had two sacks tonight, giving him 4.5 on the season, and all of them have been impactful in Pittsburgh victories.
Highsmith is the perfect partner to OLB T.J. Watt off the edge, and the two are nearly unstoppable when both are together. Watt had a sack as well tonight, and it’s rare a game goes by where both of them are held off the stat sheet. While Highsmith’s sack totals aren’t super high this season, he’s generating a ton of pressure on opposing quarterbacks and might be having a better season than he did in 2022, when he finished with 14.5 sacks.
Highsmith is a consistent factor in games for the Steelers, and he’s playing like he’s worth every cent of the four-year, $68 million contract extension he signed this offseason. He had a favorable matchup on paper tonight, and he proceeded to take advantage of it and then some. While Dillard isn’t having a good year, he’s a veteran and a former first-round pick, and if Highsmith didn’t rise to the occasion, he could’ve had a disappointing output on primetime. Instead, the opposite was the case, and he looked like one, if not the best, players wearing Black and Gold tonight.
It goes to show that counting stats aren’t always everything. Highsmith is making a huge impact for Pittsburgh this season, despite not having gaudy sack totals. He’s been a force almost every single week and I’m excited to see what he can do the rest of this season.
