Since the Pittsburgh Steelers selected T.J. Watt in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, they have led the league in sacks in five out of seven seasons. With Watt injured for a good portion of the 2022 season, they were tied for 14th most with 40 sacks. This season, they are currently tied for the 13th most sacks with 39 and should easily finish above their mark from last year.
Watt leads the league in sacks with 16 this season. Alex Highsmith is having a down year with six sacks but has 22 pressures and is still plenty disruptive opposite Watt. One way to measure the effectiveness of a team’s pass rush is to look at its disruption caused without sending an extra man. When the team is just sending a four-man pass rush, how effective is it?
Former New York Jets analytics expert Arjun Menon posted a list on X of each team’s best configuration of personnel in their four-man rush. It shows the pressure rate and sack rate out of these groupings. Here is the list.
The Steelers have the ninth-most effective four-man pass rush in the league in generating pressure. That group is Highsmith, Watt, Larry Ogunjobi, and Keeanu Benton. They have played 15 snaps together in which the Steelers only sent four and have generated pressure on 53.3 percent of those drop backs, which works out to eight pressures. When it comes to actually finishing the play, the Steelers have the top sack percentage out of four-man groupings across the league with 26.7 percent ending in a sack. That works out to four sacks with their top personnel grouping.
They do it while mostly playing straight-up—without having to stunt or twist their defenders. Just four of those 15 snaps together featured a stunt, which is tied for the 14th lowest rate. The Steelers aren’t scheming up this success, their players are just winning their individual battles.
Seeing rookie Benton included in this is encouraging for the Steelers. He has been on a quick ascent as one of the top young defensive linemen in the league. He has started seven games and has played a little under 50 percent of the team’s snaps this season. Despite the lighter workload, he has seven total pressures and a sack so far in his rookie season.
Ogunjobi’s inclusion is a bit surprising as he has had a slow year in terms of production, but it makes sense with Cameron Heyward’s groin injury that held him out of six full games. Ogunjobi has 10 total pressures and three sacks this year, but has overall not lived up to the three-year, $27.8 million contract extension he received in the offseason.
The core of this four-man rush will be together for years to come in Pittsburgh and the team will likely continue adding to its defensive line this offseason. Having a four-man rush that can get home is very beneficial for a defense as it frees up the other seven guys in coverage. Inserting another young and talented defensive lineman into this group will solidify the unit for years to come. This is especially important with Heyward, 34, nearing the end of his career.
