Over the last three games, the Pittsburgh Steelers have done a nice job of tackling well within games, cleaning up mistakes and avoiding some costly missed tackles that result in explosive plays.
That was again the case on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Acrisure Stadium. In poor conditions in a game that featured rain throughout, the Steelers missed just six total tackles in the 20-10 loss, doing rather well until late in the fourth quarter, tackling the catch, doing a nice job of bottling running back Travis Etienne up, and really playing sound football in the tackling department.
The six missed tackles was just one more than the Steelers missed in a strong defensive performance in Week Seven on the road against the Los Angeles Rams and one less than the team missed in the Week Five win over the Baltimore Ravens.
Let’s take a look
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES vs. JAGUARS — 6
Keanu Neal – 2
Kwon Alexander – 1
Damontae Kazee – 1
Armon Watts – 1
Nick Herbig – 1 (special teams)
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 8 (7 GAMES) — 56 (8.0 MISSES PER GAME)
Keanu Neal – 7 (35 tackles on 42 total attempts, 16.6% miss rate)
Minkah Fitzpatrick – 6 (53 tackles on 59 total attempts, 10.1% miss rate)
Patrick Peterson – 6 (20 tackles on 26 total attempts, 23.1% miss rate)
Elandon Roberts – 5 (39 tackles on 44 total attempts, 11.4% miss rate)
Kwon Alexander – 5 (39 tackles on 44 total attempts, 11.4% miss rate)
Joey Porter Jr. – 4 (14 tackles on 18 total attempts, 22.2% miss rate)
Cole Holcomb – 4 (53 tackles on 57 total attempts, 7.0% miss rate)
Damontae Kazee – 4 (30 tackles on 34 total attempts, 11.8% miss rate)
Montravius Adams – 3 (one on sack attempt) (21 tackles on 24 total attempts, 12.5% miss rate)
Levi Wallace – 3 (24 tackles on 27 total attempts, 11.1% miss rate)
Elijah Riley – 2 (one on sack attempt) (three tackles on five total attempts, 40% miss rate)
T.J. Watt – 1 (18 tackles on 19 total attempts, 5.3% miss rate)
Mark Robinson — 1 (special teams) (four tackles on five total attempts, 20% miss rate)
Markus Golden — 1 (10 tackles on 11 total attempts, 9.1% miss rate)
Miles Killebrew — 1 (special teams) (nine tackles on 10 total attempts, 10% miss rate)
Armon Watts – 1 (five tackles on six total attempts, 16.6% miss rate)
Nick Herbig – 1 (special teams) (10 tackles on 11 total attempts, 9.1% miss rate)
Coming out of the loss to the Jaguars, there’s a new missed tackles leader for the Steelers, that being veteran safety Keanu Neal. Neal has been steady for the Steelers throughout the season, but the missed tackles are starting to rear their ugly head.
Late in the fourth quarter with the Steelers needing a stop trailing 17-10, Neal had his most crucial missed tackle against Jacksonville tight end Evan Engram, allowing the play-making tight end to shake free for a 34-yard gain, putting the Jaguars in scoring position, all but putting the game away.
Neal gets lost in coverage there and is trying to catch up, but he doesn’t have the speed to match Engram. It’s an easy pitch and catch from quarterback Trevor Lawrence to Engram over the middle, and the athletic tight end does the rest, running away from Neal, who goes diving and misses, and then gains another 29 yards after the miss at the 45, getting the whole way to the Steelers’ 16 to put the game away.
The Steelers’ first missed tackle of the game came in the fourth quarter from veteran defensive lineman Armon Watts on Lawrence, who was scrambling on the play.
Watts does a nice job of working back across the face of the Jaguars’ offensive linemen and then shedding the block to get after Lawrence as he scrambles through the line into open space. Watts gets his hands around Lawrence’s waist, but he’s not able to get a good grip on him in the ran, allowing Lawrence to run through arm-tackle attempt.
After shedding the tackle attempt of Watts, Lawrence scrambles for 10 yards to set up a manageable third down.
Finally, safety Damontae Kazee missed a big tackle in the fourth quarter on a quick swing route to running back Travis Etienne out of the backfield.
Kazee does a nice job of tracking the play and closing down quickly from the secondary, taking a decent angle on Etienne out of the backfield, but he goes for the big hit and ducks his head, allowing Etienne to spin back inside and force Kazee to miss in space.
Then, linebacker Kwon Alexander misses in space on Etienne. Fortunately, fellow linebacker Cole Holcomb is there to clean up the pair of misses in space, limiting Etienne to a short gain.
Offensively, Pittsburgh did a nice job in the forced missed tackles department despite not generating much offensively. Against the Jaguars, Pittsburgh forced seven missed tackles, meaning the Steelers won the all-important tackles battle in the game within the game by a margin of +1, moving their in-season record to 5-1-1 on the season.
Sure would be nice if that was actually the Steelers’ record on the season in the win-loss column.
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES vs. JAGUARS — 7
Jaylen Warren – 2
George Pickens – 2
Diontae Johnson – 1
Calvin Austin III – 1
Najee Harris – 1
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 8 (7 GAMES) — 68 (9.71 PER GAME)
Najee Harris – 25
Jaylen Warren – 23
Calvin Austin III – 7 (two on special teams)
Diontae Johnson – 5
George Pickens – 4
Kenny Pickett — 2
Pat Freiermuth – 2
Allen Robinson II – 1
Desmond King II – 1 (special teams)
In the poor conditions, running back Jaylen Warren did a really nice job forcing missed tackles, even though the production overall was rather limited.
Warren started his strong day in the forced missed tackles department by spinning out of a tackle attempt on a run in the second quarter, making something out of nothing. Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard times this play up perfectly, shooting through the offensive linemen to. get a clean shot on Warren in the hole.
The second-year running back spins out of it though, making it look rather easy and is able to climb to the second level on the run play.
Later on in the second half, Warren does great work in the screen game.
He shows off his second-effort abilities after a Jaguars’ defender gets a good grip on him. Warren is able to twist out of the tackle attempt, maintain his balance, and gain a few more yards, moving the chains in the process.
That effort by Warren ultimately helped keep the drive alive and set up George Pickens’ 22-yard touchdown against the Jaguars, making it a 17-10 game.
Matched up one-on-one on the left of the formation, Pickens wins quickly on a slant route and hauls in the pass from backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky. From there, Pickens does the rest, hurdling Wingard and beating cornerback Montaric Brown on the play, waltzing in for the touchdown that ignited Acrisure Stadium.
