Zero catches for zero yards on zero targets. That was Pittsburgh Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth’s final stat line last night following their win over the Cincinnati Bengals. It’s quite in contrast to the last time these two games played just weeks ago.
In that one, he caught nine passes for 120 yards on 11 targets, that also coming against the Bengals. And the discrepancy from one game to the next is not a coincidence. They expected Cincinnati to play to take the middle of the field away, and that opened the outside for WR George Pickens and company.
“They had a lot to do [with] that”, head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game, via the team’s website, about how Freiermuth wasn’t utilized and where the ball was distributed. “I think some of the schematics they deployed was in reaction to some of the things that ‘Muth did last time. Again, it’s chess, not checkers when you’re in divisional play”.
It was a career game for Freiermuth, who took his blank slate last night in stride. “I could care less about my stat line”, he said after the game according to Brian Batko on Twitter. “Me, personally, I knew early on they weren’t going to let me get anything with how they were playing”.
It seems as though that’s what the Steelers were anticipating that the Bengals would do and planned accordingly. Cincinnati has not had a good time of it against tight ends this season generally speaking, so they overemphasized it last night and it cost them elsewhere.
“Pat’s been great for us. Coach T calls him a zone killer”, QB Mason Rudolph said, via the team’s website. “He’s so savvy with his feel for zone coverage and when to hook up and when to break out Kenny [Pickett] killed them with that in Cincinnati, so we and I felt like ‘Hey, they’re gonna be alert to that, no question’”.
“We wanted to have some answers other places”, he added. “It’s frustrating at times because you want to get Pat the ball, but we got the ball to other people and moved the chains”.
It’s worth noting that Rudolph only attempted 27 passes during the game, which isn’t a lot in this day and age, though he distributed the ball to just about everybody but Freiermuth. Pickens and RB Jaylen Warren both got six targets, while WR Allen Robinson II got four and Diontae Johnson got five. WR Calvin Austin III got two, while TE Darnell Washington and WR Miles Boykin were targeted once each. There were also two throwaways.
Freiermuth has only had 30-plus yards in a game once this season outside of that one big game against the Bengals. That was back in Week Three when he caught three passes for 41 yards and a touchdown against the Las Vegas Raiders.
The only other game in which he has reached even 20 yards in a game was right after the first Bengals game. He caught three passes for 29 against the Arizona Cardinals. Nearly have of his 243 yards on the season come from just that one game. That’s fine by him as long as they win.
