Today, I wanted to look at and provide data on new Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Justin Fields as passers, viewing completed and intended air yards (CAY, IAY), and including former quarterback Kenny Pickett in 2023 for comparison. Plotted are players with a minimum of 225 regular season pass attempts (33 qualifiers).
Here are the results:
On the top right are quarterbacks that pushed the ball downfield more on average, including Fields. On 370 regular season attempts last season (23rd), he had a 5.8 CAY number that ranked 16th, and an 8.5 IAY that postured better at eighth with Chicago.
Of course, passing depth is only one piece of the puzzle and not the most important in the hierarchy of winning games. For example, back-to-back Super Bowl Champion Patrick Mahomes landed on the extreme lower left, in the bottom three in both CAY (dead last) and IAY.
This is the quadrant that Wilson and Pickett were in as well with obviously different team results. Starting with Wilson, on 447 attempts (19th), he had an average of 4.6 CAY (29th) and 7.5 IAY (22nd). Similar to Fields, and many other quarterbacks, the IAY moved up the ranks, while Wilson’s CAY was in the bottom five.
While not to the success of the Chiefs, the Broncos employed a short passing attack with Sean Payton that relied on YAC on Wilson’s throws overall. He ranked fourth in that study I just linked. By the way, Mahomes was first.
Pickett and Fields also ranked high in YAC, eighth and 11th to be exact. That improvement last year for Pittsburgh’s offense was definitely welcomed, after struggling mightily in YAC previously. Prior to that playmaking from receivers, Pickett had 4.9 CAY and 7.1 IAY, each ranking 27th on 324 attempts (28th).
Pickett had the lowest IAY of the three focused quarterbacks but did post a CAY that landed two spots higher than Wilson. Considering Wilson and Fields had success with deep ball effectiveness in 2023, the IAY results make sense and hopefully transpires that way for the black and gold in 2024.
Then, there’s also another new component to Pittsburgh’s 2024 offense in OC Arthur Smith. With Atlanta and QB Desmond Ridder last season, they posted a 6.2 CAY number (seventh), 8.1 IAY (11th), on 388 attempts (22nd). What stands out positively is that CAY result comfortably leading the three highlighted quarterbacks, a hopeful result that Smith can repeat with the 2024 Steelers.
That is interesting when considering Wilson’s recent air yardage resume and what the balance could look like for the expected starter in Smith’s offense. With a run-first offense, that will ideally open up the passing game more consistently than the 2023 Steelers. Here’s to hoping we see just that.
Interestingly, Fields aligns more in the air yards results to Smith in Atlanta. Considering his youth, and the hope Pittsburgh found the long term QB1 in Fields, the data is encouraging on how the two can hopefully join forces for a successful future if things pan out.
