Sustaining drives is obviously vital to a successful offense. Today, I wanted to evaluate unsuccessful ones, looking at three-and-outs for new Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in the 2023 season.
Let’s jump right in. Here is a visual of total plays on three-and-out drives (bar), first down success (white square = six yards or >= 40 percent of the needed yardage), second down success (gray square = six yards or >= 50 percent of the needed yardage), and total successful plays (dot):
Lots of great info here. The first thing that jumps out is Russell Wilson lands toward the bottom of the visual with the fifth-most three-and-out plays in 2023 (97). That ranked 29th out of the 33 qualifying QBs with a minimum of 250 regular season total dropbacks.
That is unfortunate to learn, especially in anticipation of 2024, where Pittsburgh needs to trend positively in sustaining drives. Wilson and the Broncos particularly struggled on first down, with only one successful play, and they tied for second-least. Ouch.
They were much better on second downs with seven successes, tying for ninth-best. Digging themselves into a hole on first down was the theme that was difficult to overcome and repeatedly led to three-and-outs at a high rate.
That was also true for Fields in Chicago last season. He had just one first-down success as well compared to five first-down successes (17th) on 71 three-and-out plays (14th). Fields did appear in fewer games (13) than Wilson, though (15), which is important quantity context.
Pickett’s marks were quite different in Pittsburgh in 2023. What stands out positively is having the most first-down success, with seven such plays that tied for fourth-best compared to just one each for Wilson and Fields (wow). The issue comparatively for the Steelers last season was second down, when Pickett had four successes, tying for 21st.
In 12 games, Pickett’s 68 three-and-out plays fared better than I anticipated, facing the undesired situation 12th-least. The situation felt painful still, emphasizing that if things transpire similarly for the new QB room in 2024, we might feel similar or even more pain with several three-and-out drives, unfortunately.
Optimistically, substantial investments in the offense were made by Pittsburgh this offseason, which will hopefully result in more ideal situations for Russell Wilson and Justin Fields to be more consistently successful (knocks on wood).
For even more context, here is a scatter plot with first and second-down success rates on three-and-out drives:
This view really hammers the earlier takeaways further, with the new QB room struggling profusely on first down, while Pickett had the top-ranked 36.8 first-down three-and-out success rate.
Fields had a 4.8 first-down success rate (30th), and Wilson came in at a 3.7 mark (32nd). Those were both in the bottom five among their peers, fourth and second-worst, to be exact. The new QB room in 2024 must have a huge goal of avoiding stalled drives more often.
The dot sizes, particularly for Wilson, emphasize that fact contributing to far too many stalls in Denver in 2023. Yes, Wilson played in more games than the three QBs we’re focused on, but his 530 total dropbacks ranked 18th among qualifiers. So, plenty of his peers performed much better in these terms.
The second-down rates landed much more evenly for the three quarterbacks in our sights. Wilson’s 22.6 mark was the best, around the league average and ranking 17th. Pickett’s number was 22.2, landing at the next ranking (18th), and 20.8 for Fields (21st). While the primary issue on three-and-out drives for the new Steelers quarterbacks was first downs, we also see that second downs could stand to improve.
I also did a similar study of new Steelers OC Arthur Smith on three-and-out drives. In four of five seasons as an OC or HC, his teams were encouragingly average or better at limiting three-and-outs. The unfortunate exception was last season when his team struggled with stalled drives. Pittsburgh has also been a well below-average team since 2019.
This, along with the findings on Wilson and Fields, does lead to some worry about how the groups’ most recent offerings in 2023 panned out. None of those teams were the Steelers, though, who really invested in their offense, which will ideally result in better three-and-out marks and across the board next year.
Hopefully, we will see fewer three-and-out drives for Pittsburgh in 2024, and it all starts on first down for the new QB unit.
