While it’s been far from perfect, the early stages of the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers journey has resulted in a perfect 2-0 record. A huge reason is their philosophy of extreme importance in taking care of the football on offense and turning it over on defense.
Today I’ll look at and provide turnover differential data, which is takeaways (defensive turnovers) – giveaways (offensive turnovers) through Week Two:
Pittsburgh stands alone as the best team in the NFL in turnover differential. That has been the catalyst to their record, and necessary with the rest of their identity: run first on offense, and dominant defense.
Let’s break this top rank down further, looking at giveaways (offense) and takeaways (defense):
Pittsburgh is one of only three offenses who have yet to turn the football over, along with the New England Patriots and Washington Commanders. Those teams each have a 1-1 record, pointing to the Steelers identity cooking up a better recipe to wins thus far. Impressive feat for Pittsburgh, and a factor in why the Steelers are one of only nine remaining unbeaten teams.
The Steelers defense has been spectacular and clearly in the driver’s seat of the teams identity and success. They have provided five takeaways, tied with the New Orleans Saints (who are off to a hot start) at second-best, while the Green Bay Packers are first with six. Pittsburgh’s avenue has namely been interceptions (four), and one fumble recovery by star edge rusher T.J. Watt.
Speaking of fumbles, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. That’s a caveat to the offensive result for Pittsburgh, with two fumbles on snap exchanges that had fortunate Steeler bounces.
That must be cleaned up by QB Justin Fields and company, which I’m optimistic for as more communication and time goes by. Fields has done well to avoid interceptions and Pittsburgh hasn’t put too much on his plate, either.
Pittsburgh is set to clash with a similar smash mouth squad in the Chargers for Week 3. Whoever wins the turnover battle will likely come out on top.
