The Pittsburgh Steelers have been cobbling together their inside linebacker position since losing LB Cole Holcomb in Week Nine and Kwon Alexander in Week 10. While the biggest impact of not having Alexander stem from his veteran leadership, his play-calling ability, and well-rounded game, the team is also missing him as a blitzer.
Saturday, analyst Arjun Menon tweeted a list of the most successful blitzers, broken down by defensive success when blitzing and pressure rate generated. According to Menon, Alexander finished seventh on the list. When blitzing, opposing offenses had a success rate of just 29 percent. The Steelers generated a pressure on 54.8 percent of his rushes.
Check out the full table below.
A pair of Kansas City Chiefs take two of the top three spots while the AFC North is well represented on the list. The Chiefs’ Drue Tranquill tops the list with teammate and S Justin Reid not far behind in third. A whopping three Cleveland Browns make the list in LBs Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Anthony Walker Jr., and Sione Takitaki grabbing the second, sixth, and nine spots respectively.
At a more surface level, Alexander picked up one sack in the nine games he appeared in for the Steelers, sacking Baltimore Ravens LB Lamar Jackson for a third-down stop in Pittsburgh’s Week Five win. According to our charting, Alexander registered only two pressures this season, one of which was his sack.
It should be noted that the correlation of the list may not mean causation. Menon’s data matches what one player does, blitz, versus the success of the play as a defense. Meaning, Alexander could blitz, get picked up and not impact the play at all, and if another defender made a play, it works in Alexander’s favor. So the data isn’t the end-all, especially looking at our charting that shows Alexander wasn’t racking up the pressures.
Still, it’s an interesting footnote about Alexander’s season. Pittsburgh has been looking for a quality blitzing inside linebacker since Vince Williams retired. Elandon Roberts has shown an aptitude here. If anything, more so than Alexander. Per our charting, Roberts has six pressures, a 15.6 pressure rate, and 2.5 sacks, including one against the Patriots. Based on that data alone, he seems like the more effective blitzer. Roberts has been excellent replacing Alexander and Holcomb and is a near-lock to return for the second year of his contract. Holcomb will be back too while Alexander may have played his last NFL down, turning 30 next August and coming off his second Achilles tear.
