Over the offseason, the Pittsburgh Steelers gave DL Larry Ogunjobi a hefty three-year contract worth $27 million. They bet big on him staying healthy and to his credit for 2023, he seemingly has. No longer is Ogunjobi constantly listed on the injury report with nagging foot problems, curtailing his practice reps and overall readiness.
And yet. His production has been minimal. And only gotten worse over the year. At this point, he’s easy to forget about and we haven’t spent hardly any time talking about him. Chris Hoke made the point about Ogunjobi’s quiet play earlier this week and it got me thinking.
To sum up his struggles, ESPN analyst Seth Walder posted this graphic of pass rush win and double-team rates among 2023 defensive tackles. Ogunjobi had one of the worst results. A low double-team rate with a low pass rush win rate. Here’s the chart (tweets aren’t embedding properly right now so I’ve just grabbed a shot of the photo but credit goes to Walder for the data).
Of the roughly two dozen names on that list, the only player with clearly worse results is Minnesota’s Harrison Phillips. Las Vegas’ Bilal Nichols has a lower double-team rate but higher win-rate, probably a wash compared to Ogunjobi’s figures.
Looking at simpler stats, Ogunjobi has just two sacks this season. None have come since Week Eight. In 29 starts in his two years with the team, he has only 3.5 of them.
In fairness, sacks aren’t the end-all. They can be fluky and numbers tend to run hot and cold. Impacting the passing game goes beyond that and pressures is a useful stat to show true impact. According to our charting that tracks pressures, Ogunjobi has 13 on the season. In itself, not a terrible number (he had 19 all of last year). But he had seven of those pressures over the first three weeks. Since Week Four, he has just six of them, a really low number. On a per-rush basis, here’s his pressure splits from Weeks 1-3 compared to Weeks 4-14.
Ogunjobi Snaps Per Pressure
Weeks 1-3: 13.0
Weeks 4-14: 73.8
A stark contrast. Over the first three weeks, Ogunjobi played well and looked at the peak of his game. Winning as a rusher, flashing quick and active hands, collapsing the pocket. Even in Week Five, he had a great effort/hustle play to force a fumble downfield, recovered by the Steelers. Since the bye though, his play has gone completely quiet, especially as a pass rusher. I don’t want to say he’s been bad or a liability, he hasn’t and his run defense has been fine, but for the money and snaps he’s getting, there has to be more. Especially when it blocks rookie Keeanu Benton, who over the same Week 4-14 span, has a pressure once every 17.8 snaps. Nearly what Ogunjobi did early in the year.
Now, Ogunjobi is the veteran and getting paid a bunch of money so it’s no surprise he’s getting a lot of burn. And the team doesn’t want to burden a rookie like Benton and burn him out by season’s end, though Pittsburgh needs to win and win right now.
Maybe Ogunjobi has a breakout game. The talent is there. When he’s on his game, he’s an effective rusher next to Heyward even if the sack numbers aren’t huge. But on the year, Pittsburgh’s d-line has only 6.5 sacks. Largely due to Heyward’s injury, of course, but the rest of the group hasn’t picked up the slack in statistical production. And their interior pressure hasn’t been as good as it should, even with Heyward’s return (he’s been great against the run, less so as a rusher).
As Dave Bryan wrote back in September, Ogunjobi has a nearly-$5 million roster bonus due in March. At the start of the year, it seemed likely they’d pick it up months after extending him to a three-year deal. They usually see these deals through two years of a three-year or longer contract. Now, I have pause. Internal options to replace him aren’t great, especially as DeMarvin Leal’s disappointed, and they may not want to dump Ogunjobi while also looking for Heyward’s successor, but he needs to make his mark on this final month. Starting today.
