Coming out of the 2022 season, even with the Pittsburgh Steelers missing the playoffs, there was at least one underrated reason defensively to be excited about. That was with the tackling that the Steelers displayed in 2022.
Over the years, Pittsburgh has really struggled from a missed tackles perspective. Coming off of the 2021 season, in which the Steelers missed an absurd 180 tackles (10.58 per game) based on my own charting here for Steelers Depot, the Steelers made it an emphasis in 2022. Pittsburgh improved dramatically last season in the tackling department.
Though they missed the playoffs, the Steelers missed just 97 tackles (5.71 per game) in 2022, cutting their misses per game in half in rather impressive fashion. In fact, the Steelers had just two players with double-digit misses last season in Tre Norwood and Arthur Maulet, each missing 11 tackles.
Things seemed to be heading in the right direction — until they weren’t.
After undergoing significant changes defensively, letting cornerback Cameron Sutton and safety Terrell Edmunds walk in free agency, and overhauling the linebacker room, the Steelers saw a dramatic regression in the tackling department, which was a real issue for the Steelers on that side of the football.
While Pittsburgh finished as the sixth-best defense in scoring on the season and forced a number of turnovers, Pittsburgh was quite rough in the tackling department. Including the playoffs, the Steelers missed 143 tackles on the season, which is 7.94 misses per game. In fact, the Steelers had three players in double digits in missed tackles, that being safety Damontae Kazee, cornerback Patrick Peterson, and linebacker Elandon Roberts, two of whom were off-season additions to the roster.
Missed Tackles over last three seasons:
- 2021 — 180 missed tackles (10.58 per game)
- 2022 — 97 missed tackles (5.71 per game)
- 2023 — 143 missed tackles (7.94 per game)
From a tackling perspective, the Steelers were improving after struggling in that department for a few seasons. The 2022 season was a very clear, positive step in the right direction. Then it all came crashing down this season, even with a strong close to the season before the Wild Card round loss to the Buffalo Bills.
In the final three weeks of the season, with the playoffs on the line, the Steelers missed just a combined 15 tackles. Then, in the Wild Card round, the Steelers missed 11 tackles. The issues popped up at the worst possible time.
It was the same common contributors once again.
Patrick Peterson, who had 19 missed tackles over the previous three seasons in Arizona and Minnesota before joining the Steelers, really struggled in the tackling department in his age-33 season.
Peterson tied for the team lead in missed tackles with 13, a missed tackles rate of 22%. That’s very, very bad. Norwood led the Steelers last season with a missed tackle rate of around 32%.
Even Kazee was a mess in a larger role this season, missing 13 tackles for a missed tackles rate of 17.1%. Again, that’s a very bad number. The secondary was awful in the tackling department this season. Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick had eight missed tackles, as did Neal. Even rookie cornerback Joey Porter Jr. had six missed tackles. However, he got much, much better down the stretch and was one of the more consistent tacklers for the Steelers late in the year.
But the tackling, without a doubt, regressed.
Top Five Missed Tackles Rates in 2023 (minimum 20 tackles)
- Patrick Peterson — 22% miss rate (46 tackles on 59 attempts, 13 misses)
- Damontae Kazee — 17.1% miss rate ((63 tackles on 76 attempts, 13 misses)
- Kwon Alexander — 14.6% miss rate (41 tackles on 48 attempts, 7 misses)
- Keanu Neal — 13.8% miss rate (50 tackles on 58 attempts, 8 misses)
- Nick Herbig — 12.5% miss rate (28 tackles on 32 attempts, 4 misses)
Notice a trend there? Four of the five with the highest missed tackles rate on the season were off-season additions, whether through free agency or the draft.
The Steelers let some key defenders walk in the offseason, not just for the role they filled but for how they played, especially from a tackling perspective. Cornerback Cameron Sutton had just a 12.2% miss rate last season. Safety Terrell Edmunds sat at just 11.1%. Even linebacker Devin Bush was great in the tackling department, with a 2.4% miss rate.
The Steelers very clearly valued play-making with their additions in the offseason over tackling, and it cost them in the tackling department on the year. Hopefully, there’s a reset coming in the tackling department for 2024 because the Steelers were one of the better teams in football in 2022 in that area of the game but then regressed — hard — in 2023, costing them in the playoffs.
