For the second straight week, a short-handed defense turned in a relatively strong showing in the tackling department.
Against the Cleveland Browns on the road in a 13-10 loss, the Steelers missed just eight tackles, which is rather impressive when considering the Steelers worked in two first-time starters with the defense in veteran linebacker Mykal Walker and safety Trenton Thompson.
Though communication was an issue at times defensively, tackling wasn’t all that huge of a problem, which his saying something in a rather ugly game.
Let’s take a look at the Week 11 missed tackles report from Steelers-Browns.
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES AT BROWNS — 8
Damontae Kazee – 1
Mykal Walker – 1
Nick Herbig – 1
Patrick Peterson – 1
Larry Ogunjobi – 1
Trenton Thompson – 1
Connor Heyward – 1 (special teams)
Miles Killebrew – 1 (special teams)
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 11 (10 GAMES) — 82 (8.2 MISSES PER GAME)
Damontae Kazee – 9 (44 tackles on 53 total attempts, 17% miss rate)
Patrick Peterson – 8 (28 tackles on 36 total attempts, 22% miss rate)
Keanu Neal – 8 (50 tackles on 58 total attempts, 13.8% miss rate)
Kwon Alexander – 7 (41 tackles on 48 total attempts, 14.6% miss rate)
Elandon Roberts – 7 (71 tackles on 78 total attempts, 8.9% miss rate)
Minkah Fitzpatrick – 6 (53 tackles on 59 total attempts, 10.1% miss rate)
Joey Porter Jr. – 5 (27 tackles on 32 total attempts, 15.6% miss rate)
Cole Holcomb – 4 (54 tackles on 58 total attempts, 6.9% miss rate)
Elijah Riley – 4 (two on sack attempts, one on special teams, nine tackles on 13 total attempts, 30.7% miss rate)
Montravius Adams – 3 (one on sack attempt, 21 tackles on 24 total attempts, 12.5% miss rate)
Levi Wallace – 3 (25 tackles on 28 total attempts, 10.7% miss rate)
Miles Killebrew — 2 (both special teams, 11 tackles on 13 total attempts, 15.4% miss rate)
Nick Herbig – 2 (one on special teams, 12 tackles on 14 total attempts, 14.3% miss rate)
Mark Robinson — 2 (both on special teams, eight tackles on 10 total attempts, 20% miss rate)
T.J. Watt – 1 (30 tackles on 31 total attempts, 3.2% miss rate)
Markus Golden — 1 (11 tackles on 12 total attempts, 8.3% miss rate)
Armon Watts – 1 (eight tackles on nine total attempts, 11.1% miss rate)
Keeanu Benton — 1 (26 tackles on 27 total attempts, 3.7% miss rate)
Isaiahh Loudermilk — 1 (11 tackles on 12 total attempts, 8.3% miss rate)
Miles Boykin — 1 (special teams, three tackles on four total attempts, 25% miss rate)
Mykal Walker — 1 (two tackles on three total attempts, 33.3% miss rate)
Trenton Thompson – 1 (six tackles on seven total attempts, 14.3% miss rate)
Connor Heyward – 1 (special teams, one tackle on two total attempts, 50% miss rate)
Larry Ogunjobi – 1 (28 tackles on 29 total attempts, 3.4% miss rate)
Another week, another missed tackle from Damontae Kazee. It ended up indirectly leading to Cleveland’s lone touchdown, too.
On the second drive of the game from the Browns, Kazee attempts to fill the lane coming downhill from his safety position. He does a good job of working downhill and closing the gap quickly to get a shot on Cleveland running back Jerome Ford.
He does everything right but finish the play.
Kazee gets a good look at Ford coming out of the hole and has a chance to get him on the ground, but he’s unable to make the tackle. Thanks to his miss, it forces veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson to try and make a play. Peterson goes high on Ford and ends up getting called for a facemask penalty, putting Cleveland half the distance closer to the goal line.
Big miss from Kazee in space.
Two plays later, new linebacker Mykal Walker recorded his first miss as a Steeler.
Walker does everything right initially in the rep. He gets skinny and slips through the line of scrimmage to get into the backfield, getting a clean look at Ford.
Though he catches some friendly fire from Kazee, Walker ends up grasping at air as Ford spins out of the tackle attempt, allowing him to cut back to the left where there is space. Fortunately for Walker, the Steelers are able to recover and get Ford down short of the goal line, living to fight another down.
Who knows what would have happened after this rep though if Walker made the tackle for loss. One play later, Ford punched in a touchdown to give the Browns a 7-0 lead.
Finally, late in the game safety Trenton Thompson missed in space on running back Kareem Hunt, allowing the Browns to move the chains.
Simple draw play here from the Browns and it caught the Steelers off guard.
Center Ethan Pocic and guard Wyatt Teller get a good initial push against Steelers rookie defensive tackle Keeanu Benton, taking advantage of his inside stunt to create a lane. Teller then climbs to the second level and gets a hat on Elandon Roberts, giving Hunt a big hole.
Thompson comes downhill to fill the lane, but he ducks his head and goes low. That allows Hunt to hurdle him and convert the first down in a big spot, giving the Browns breathing room from their own end zone, chewing up more clock and getting out of a second and 11 from their own 13-yard line.
While the Steelers tackled relatively well in the matchup, Pittsburgh gave Cleveland fits in the missed tackles department. Offensively, Pittsburgh forced 10 missed tackles against Cleveland, winning the missed tackles battle once again, improving to 8-1-1 in the tackling department battle on the season.
Sure wish the Steelers’ overall record looked like that.
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES AT BROWNS — 10
Jaylen Warren – 7
Najee Harris – 3
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 11 (10 GAMES) — 111 (11.1 PER GAME)
Jaylen Warren – 47
Najee Harris – 34
Calvin Austin III – 9 (three on special teams)
Diontae Johnson – 6
George Pickens – 4
Kenny Pickett — 2
Pat Freiermuth – 2
Allen Robinson II – 1
Desmond King II – 1 (special teams)
Connor Heyward – 1
Put simply, Sunday’s game against the Browns was the best performance of Jaylen Warren’s career, both from a statistical standpoint and from a forced missed tackles standpoint. He’s on a heater right now and is showing no signs of slowing down.
In the last three weeks, Warren has forced 24 missed tackles, according to my charting.
Right away against Cleveland he showed what kind of day it was going to be.
On a 3rd and 1 in the second quarter, Warren spun out of a tackle in the hole and then refused to go down after that.
His work in tight continues to be very, very impressive.
That’s a great spin move on Cleveland linebacker Jeremiah Owosu-Koramoah, avoiding the tackle in the hole for a short gain. After that, Warren has a never-say-die mentality, refusing to go down. He fights for every blade of grass. Cornerback Denzel Ward found that out the hard way, eating a couple of stiff arms in the process.
Later in the game he had another great run, resulting in him winning the “Angry Runs” segment from Good Morning Football Tuesday.
How Warren gets through the garbage around the line of scrimmage here is jaw-dropping. He gets skinny and vertical in a hurry, slipping right through the line of scrimmage. Then, it’s off to the races. For good measure, Warren tosses safety Rodney McLeod to the side at the end of the run, too.
All Warren does is run with force time and time again. He fits exactly what being a running back in Pittsburgh is all about, as does Najee Harris. The two are playing really well right now and dishing out punishment any opportunity they get.
