As if Sunday’s performance against the Arizona Cardinals wasn’t already ugly enough, I’m going to make it even uglier with some not-so-great stats.
In the 24-10 loss to the Cardinals at Acrisure Stadium, the Steelers turned in the worst tackling performance of the season, missing 15 tackles in the loss. Additionally, the Steelers set the worst mark for missed tackles in a half Sunday in my six years charting missed tackles for Steelers Depot, missing 11 tackles in the first half of play.
Those 11 missed tackles in the first half were good for the third-most all season from an in-game total. That helped the Steelers set a new mark for season high. Ugly showing through and through.
Let’s look at the Week 13 missed tackles report against the Cardinals.
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES VS CARDINALS — 15
Mykal Walker – 3
Damontae Kazee – 2
T.J. Watt – 2
Elandon Roberts – 2 (one on sack attempt)
Trenton Thompson – 1
Minkah Fitzpatrick – 1
Nick Herbig – 1
Levi Wallace – 1
Larry Ogunjobi – 1
Miles Boykin – 1 (special teams)
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 13 (12 GAMES) — 107 (8.92 MISSES PER GAME)
Damontae Kazee – 12 (53 tackles on 65 total attempts, 18.4% miss rate)
Elandon Roberts – 9 (one on sack attempt) (80 tackles on 89 total attempts, 10.1% miss rate)
Patrick Peterson – 9 (30 tackles on 39 total attempts, 23.1% 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)
Minkah Fitzpatrick – 7 (59 tackles on 66 total attempts, 10.6% miss rate)
Joey Porter Jr. – 5 (33 tackles on 38 total attempts, 13.1% miss rate)
Mykal Walker — 4 (17 tackles on 21 total attempts, 19.1% miss rate)
Cole Holcomb – 4 (54 tackles on 58 total attempts, 6.9% miss rate)
Levi Wallace – 4 (27 tackles on 31 total attempts, 12.9% miss rate)
Elijah Riley – 4 (two on sack attempts, one on special teams, nine tackles on 13 total attempts, 30.7% miss rate)
T.J. Watt – 3 (47 tackles on 50 total attempts, 6.0% miss rate)
Larry Ogunjobi – 3 (31 tackles on 34 total attempts, 8.8% miss rate)
Montravius Adams – 3 (one on sack attempt, 21 tackles on 24 total attempts, 12.5% miss rate)
Nick Herbig – 3 (one on special teams, 14 tackles on 17 total attempts, 17.6% miss rate)
Miles Boykin — 2 (special teams, three tackles on five total attempts, 40% miss rate)
Trenton Thompson – 2 (14 tackles on 16 total attempts, 12.5% miss rate)
Miles Killebrew — 2 (both special teams, 14 tackles on 16 total attempts, 11.1% miss rate)
Mark Robinson — 2 (both on special teams, 17 tackles on 19 total attempts, 10.5% miss rate)
Markus Golden — 2 (11 tackles on 13 total attempts, 15.4% miss rate)
Armon Watts – 1 (10 tackles on 11 total attempts, 9.1% miss rate)
Keeanu Benton — 1 (30 tackles on 31 total attempts, 2.9% miss rate)
Isaiahh Loudermilk — 1 (14 tackles on 15 total attempts, 6.6% miss rate)
Connor Heyward – 1 (special teams, one tackle on two total attempts, 50% miss rate)
Chandon Sullivan — 1 (sack attempt, 16 tackles on 17 total attempts, 5.9% miss rate)
To steal a Mike Tomlin-ism, Sunday’s performance in the tackling department was, well, sub-par.
The Steelers flat-out weren’t good enough defensively, period. They couldn’t tackle, weren’t all that assignment-sound, and were just generally sloppy. Early on, things were fine. But then, something changed, and it all fell apart.
The first misses of the day that I’m going to highlight were a microcosm of the day for the Steelers defense.
Defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi does a great job of getting penetration into the backfield, whooping the Cardinals’ lineman, and getting a shot at a tackle for loss on running back James Conner.
He’s unable to finish, though. I know the offensive lineman is still engaged with Ogunjobi, but this is a play you need your highly-paid defensive lineman to make behind the line of scrimmage, period.
After Ogunjobi misses, it’s Mykal Walker’s turn. It was a burn-the-tape day for the veteran linebacker. Though he was able to recover and get back in on the tackle, Walker’s initial miss took away an opportunity to keep the Cardinals behind the sticks.
It only continued for Walker.
On Arizona’s 99-yard touchdown drive, Walker was a mess. He took the blame for the entire drive after the game, which is admirable of him to do. Still, it doesn’t excuse the play. His missed tackle on running back Michael Carter in the hole was woeful and sparked the Cardinals’ drive.
Walker has to make this stop in the hole. He just has to. I know he’s coming up off the practice squad and still getting his bearings, but he’s a veteran linebacker who had 107 tackles a season ago in Atlanta. He has to make this stop.
He does everything right, getting off the block and exploding downhill for contact in the hole. He just doesn’t wrap up. Carter steps out of the hit and races 22 yards downfield, giving the Cardinals’ offense a major boost.
Later on the same drive, it was Minkah Fitzpatrick’s turn for a missed tackle in space.
Trey McBride was a menace all game long. He was constantly open, made tough catches, and was good after the catch. He let the Steelers know about it time and time again, too.
It might be an overlooked play, but he tossed Fitzpatrick to the turf in space.
Quick throw here from Kyler Murray, so Fitzpatrick drives on it, getting downhill to get to McBride in space. The second-year tight end easily discards him, though, with a perfectly placed stiff-arm, bouncing Fitzpatrick to the turf, picking up a chunk of yards, helping set up his touchdown a few plays later.
Finally, I wanted to look at Elandon Roberts’ missed sack on a well-timed blitz.
This is well-designed and well-timed for the Steelers. Roberts simply has to finish.
Second week in a row the Steelers have schemed up a free rusher and have not come away with a sack.
Murray is a slippery quarterback, I’ll give Roberts that. But this is a play you are paying him to make, especially as a downhill thumper and effective blitzer. Fortunately for the Steelers, Murray was under duress and threw incomplete, but it was a missed opportunity for Roberts.
Offensively, the Steelers weren’t very good in the forced missed tackles department. On the day, the Steelers forced just six missed tackles. That means they lost the all-important tackles battle by a margin of -9, the highest margin in a loss for the Steelers since the -10 mark the team had in the 2020 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts.
Yikes.
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES VS. CARDINALS — 6
Jaylen Warren – 2
Najee Harris – 1
Diontae Johnson – 1
Pat Freiermuth – 1
Godwin Igwebuike – 1 (special teams)
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 13 (12 GAMES) — 128 (10.6 PER GAME)
Jaylen Warren – 53
Najee Harris – 40
Calvin Austin III – 9 (three on special teams)
Diontae Johnson – 8
George Pickens – 4
Pat Freiermuth – 3
Kenny Pickett — 2
Allen Robinson II – 1
Desmond King II – 1 (special teams)
Connor Heyward – 1
Darnell Washington — 1
Godwin Igwebuike – 1 (special teams)
Not much to write home about here or highlight from a forced missed tackles perspective.
Jaylen Warren and Najee Harris had some success running hard in the first half, but once the game got out of hand, the Steelers had to abandon the run.
Pat Freiermuth did well on his three catches, forcing one missed tackle to move the chains and dragging two other defenders on another third-down catch to move the chains. Diontae Johnson, to his credit, forced a missed tackle on the failed screen in the first half, in which he had no shot of getting upfield.
Hopefully the Steelers get back to the level of play in the forced missed tackles department that they’ve been at this season, starting on Thursday night.
