An encouraging and more aggressive bit of news than expected broke last Sunday evening, with QB Russell Wilson intending to sign in free agency with the Pittsburgh Steelers. For the low price tag ($1.2 million), and Kenny Pickett leaving more to be desired in his time with the black and gold, it was a no-brainer for general manager Omar Kahn and company, in my opinion, to add him to the QB room.
Today, I wanted to start examining Wilson’s 2023 season with the Denver Broncos. A favorite QB stat at Steelers Depot is Adjusted Net Yards Per Pass Attempt (ANY/A), which is Passing Yards – Sack Yards + (20 * Passing TD) – 45 * Interceptions)) / (Passes Attempted + Times Sacked). Another important element of QB play is scoring and taking care of the football, so let’s pair ANY/A with touchdown/interception rate differentials (TD/INT = TD rate – INT rate).
Here are the 2023 QB results (min. 300 pass attempts):
The visual really emphasizes a stronger 2023 for Wilson, particularly in TD/INT. His 5.8 TD percentage (T-third) and 1.8 INT rate (T-ninth) made for the fourth-best 4.0 differential of qualifying QBs last season (29 qualifiers).
While one of Pickett’s strengths has been taking care of the football (second-best 1.2 INT rate), we see he had one of the lowest differentials (T-23rd) due to his dead last 1.9 TD rate.
This puts specific comparative context to the need to score more points and the hope that Wilson can bring that with him to Pittsburgh.
Looking at ANY/A, there is less of a gap between the two QBs currently on the roster. Wilson landed near the league mean at a 6.04 number that ranked 16th. You might be wondering how that landed lower given his TD/INT marks, and the answer is sack rate.
That number came in at 9.15 in 2023, ranking 25th (fifth-worst). Denver’s offensive line seemingly made nice strides last season, allowing 18 sacks after 34 in 2022 per PFF. For comparison, Pittsburgh allowed 21 sacks allowed in each of the last two seasons.
Considering Wilson was charted for 45 sacks in 2023, and 55 the previous season, we see a tendency of taking on negative plays in this regard. Pickett was sacked 27 times in 2022, and 23 last year, with a 6.63 sack rate (20th).
So, if it felt like Pickett took a lot of sacks the last two seasons, Wilson’s risk/reward play style of extending plays could bring more of that feeling. If the Steelers’ o-line can continue trending in a positive direction, and Wilson can limit some of the sacks he takes in OC Arthur Smith’s system, it could lead to a very healthy ANY/A number in 2024 that bodes well for team success historically.
One thing’s for sure, I can’t wait to see how this intriguing move plays out for the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers.
Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
