The leg of Chris Boswell and the excellent performance by the vaunted Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense may have been the primary reasons the team won the game, but the offense more than did its part.
The lack of a touchdown brings back bad memories of the Steelers’ offense in years past, but they showed large improvements in two key statistics that go hand in hand – time of possession and third-down percentage.
Let’s start with the 2023 offense and some key numbers. The Steelers averaged 29:28 in time of possession in 2023, and they had just a 36.6 third-down percentage over the course of the season, per Stathead.
It’s a small sample size, but the Steelers blew those numbers away in Week 1 of the 2024 season against the Atlanta Falcons.
With one game left to play tonight on Monday Night Football, the Steelers currently have the eighth-best third-down percentage in the league at 47.1. To put that into perspective, the Steelers only had three games that were equal to or greater than that performance in 2023. They converted 8 of their 17 opportunities yesterday.
Five of those were converted by Fields on designed quarterback runs or scrambles, one by Najee Harris on the ground, and two with Fields’ arm to WR George Pickens.
How many times did Mike Tomlin talk about the significance of losing the “weighty downs” in 2023? There are early signs of a large improvement in that regard for the 2024 offense.
They had three drives of 10 or more plays, including a 13-play drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter that killed over 7 minutes of clock. That is how you protect a lead. Last year, the Steelers only had two games last season where they had three or more 10-play drives.
All of that culminated in a lopsided time of possession for the Steelers. They controlled the ball for 35:36 compared to the Falcons’ 24:24. That included a very lopsided second half in which the Steelers had the ball for 19:19 compared to the Falcons 10:41. Once the Steelers grabbed the lead in the second half, they made it very difficult for the Falcons to come back. It was only a one-possession game on the scoreboard, but the Falcons still felt miles away.
There were only two three-and-out drives for the Steelers.
This allows the defense to stay fresh and competitive late in games, and it allows the Steelers to win the overall field position battle. This team will win a lot of games if they can control the time of possession battle, win on weighty downs and protect the football with no turnovers on offense.
It wasn’t flashy, but the ball-control offense went according to plan.
