It’s hard to really polish a turd. But I’m going to try to anyway.
Thursday night’s loss to the New England Patriots was awful in every imaginable way possible. The Steelers did largely nothing right and lost for the second time in four days to a two-win team, making NFL history.
There is some good news though, if you want to call it that. After missing 15 tackles on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, the Steelers bounced back on Thursday night, missing just six tackles against the Patriots. That’s a great improvement in such a short time.
Too bad it didn’t come in a winning effort.
It’s time for the Week 14 missed tackles report from the Steelers-Patriots game.
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES VS. PATRIOTS — 6
Elandon Roberts – 3
Nick Herbig – 1
T.J. Watt – 1
Keeanu Benton – 1
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 14 (13 GAMES) — 113 (8.69 MISSES PER GAME)
Damontae Kazee – 12 (56 tackles on 68 total attempts, 17.6% miss rate)
Elandon Roberts – 12 (one on sack attempt) (86 tackles on 98 total attempts, 12.2% miss rate)
Patrick Peterson – 9 (33 tackles on 42 total attempts, 21.4% 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 (64 tackles on 71 total attempts, 9.8% miss rate)
Joey Porter Jr. – 5 (37 tackles on 42 total attempts, 11.9% miss rate)
Mykal Walker — 4 (20 tackles on 24 total attempts, 16.6% miss rate)
Cole Holcomb – 4 (54 tackles on 58 total attempts, 6.9% miss rate)
Levi Wallace – 4 (28 tackles on 32 total attempts, 12.5% 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 – 4 (52 tackles on 56 total attempts, 7.1% miss rate)
Nick Herbig – 4 (one on special teams, 21 tackles on 25 total attempts, 16% miss rate)
Larry Ogunjobi – 3 (33 tackles on 36 total attempts, 8.3% miss rate)
Montravius Adams – 3 (one on sack attempt, 23 tackles on 26 total attempts, 11.5% miss rate)
Miles Boykin — 2 (special teams, three tackles on five total attempts, 40% miss rate)
Trenton Thompson – 2 (15 tackles on 17 total attempts, 11.7% 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, 18 tackles on 20 total attempts, 10% miss rate)
Markus Golden — 2 (11 tackles on 13 total attempts, 15.4% miss rate)
Armon Watts – 1 (11 tackles on 12 total attempts, 8.3% miss rate)
Keeanu Benton — 2 (31 tackles on 33 total attempts, 6.1% 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)
Entering Thursday night’s game against the Patriots at Acrisure Stadium, linebacker Elandon Roberts was questionable with a groin injury that forced him out of Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals. Chances were high that Roberts wouldn’t be all that effective.
Turns out, that wasn’t the case at all. Roberts was all over the field on Thursday night, recording six tackles, a sack and a pass breakup that led to Mykal Walker’s interception. However, he did miss three tackles, which is a bit concerning.
Those three missed tackles now has him tied for the team lead with safety Damontae Kazee.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, Roberts’ missed tackles Thursday night weren’t ones that ended up hurting the Steelers’ defense.
Though he comes downhill with great force here against the run, Roberts has to wrap up better in the hole.
You want to see your inside linebacker attack downhill like this against the run. Roberts sets the tone from that standpoint. More often than not, he’s making the play against the run, but he just doesn’t wrap up here.
Fortunately for Roberts, he has help around him, holding New England running back Ezekiel Elliott to no gain on the play with the Steelers trying to mount a comeback.
Earlier in the game, he had a miss in space in coverage on tight end Pharaoh Brown.
Roberts does good work here, picking up Brown on the crossing route, staying with him and reading quarterback Bailey Zappe’s eyes, driving on the throw.
He has to stay on his feet though. Drive through Brown at the catch point and get him to the ground.
Roberts goes a bit high and then tries to readjust, but he falls to the ground. Once he’s on the ground, he misses the tackle. Have to stay on your feet.
Fortunately for Roberts, outside linebacker Nick Herbig was there to help clean it up, forcing Brown out of bounds. But that’s a miss Roberts wants back, without a doubt.
Speaking of Herbig, he missed a tackle on Thursday, and it came early on in the game after he replaced T.J. Watt for a few plays. Herbig ultimately ended up playing a majority of the game after Alex Highsmith exited with a neck injury, but his missed tackle early in the game came in place of Watt.
It’s a checkdown from Zappe to Elliott in the flat. Herbig does a good job of getting overtop of it, cutting Elliott off at the sideline, but he loses his angle late, allowing Elliott to cut back inside for a few extra yards. Herbig is off balance and lunges and whiffs in space.
Not the best rep, but outside of the miss he played well in extended action overall.
Offensively, Pittsburgh had a nice night in the forced missed tackles department against the Patriots. The Steelers forced 11 missed tackles, meaning that they won the all-important tackles battle by a margin of +5, improving their season record to 10-2-1. Sure would be nice if that was actually Pittsburgh’s record.
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES VS. PATRIOTS — 11
Najee Harris – 3
Jaylen Warren – 2
Connor Heyward – 2
Godwin Igwebuike – 2 (special teams)
Calvin Austin III – 1 (special teams)
Mitch Trubisky – 1
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES THROUGH WEEK 14 (13 GAMES) — 139 (10.69 PER GAME)
Jaylen Warren – 55
Najee Harris – 43
Calvin Austin III – 10 (four on special teams)
Diontae Johnson – 8
George Pickens – 4
Connor Heyward – 3
Pat Freiermuth – 3
Godwin Igwebuike – 3 (special teams)
Kenny Pickett — 2
Allen Robinson II – 1
Desmond King II – 1 (special teams)
Darnell Washington — 1
Mitch Trubisky — 1
Another week, another great run effort from Jaylen Warren on a night in which very little went right for the Steelers offensively.
He continues to run extremely hard with the football in his hands, aiming to make something happen every time he touches the football.
The Steelers love to put him in difficult spots, too, like throwing him the football just a few yards beyond the line of scrimmage on a third and long, asking him to make defenders miss to move the chains.
To his credit, he does that consistently.
Just casually splitting to defenders along the Steelers’ sideline a few yards before the first-down marker, getting through the traffic to move the chains, giving the Steelers an opportunity to get out of the shadow of their own end zone.
The drive didn’t go anywhere in the end as Mitch Trubisky was intercepted three plays later, but still it was a remarkable effort from Warren.
Then, there’s little used tight end Connor Heyward.
Heyward is a football player, plain and simple.
That’s just remarkable effort from the second-year tight end.
It’s a short checkdown that isn’t expected to do much but lead to a more manageable third down. Instead, Heyward just moves the chains himself, hurdling a defender and slipping past another to gain three more yards before going out of bounds.
Great individual effort. He has heart and determination. You can’t teach that.
