Though it was a dominant defensive performance Sunday in Atlanta against the new-look Falcons, the Pittsburgh Steelers saw some key defenders struggle in the very basic portion of playing defense: tackling.
In the 18-10 win over the Falcons, the Steelers missed seven tackles, which was a bit concerning despite a dominant showing in which they allowed just 54 second-half yards and allowed just 226 total yards for the game.
It was who missed the tackles that was the real concern.
A win is nice, but there is plenty of room for improvement defensively, which is saying something. Let’s check out this week’s missed tackles report.
TOTAL MISSED TACKLES AT FALCONS — 7
Patrick Queen – 3 (two tackles on five total attempts, 60% miss rate)
Elandon Roberts – 2 (zero tackles on two total attempts, 100% miss rate)
Joey Porter Jr. – 1 (three tackles on four total attempts, 25% miss rate)
T.J. Watt – 1 (four tackles on five total attempts, 20% miss rate)
The addition of Patrick Queen was the big move for the Steelers in the offseason. Not only did they sign him to fill a significant hole at the inside linebacker position, they stole him from the AFC North-rival Baltimore Ravens.
While Queen had a strong training camp and looked good in preseason action, he played just 21 snaps in the preseason. On Sunday, he struggled to tackle, missing three in the win over the Falcons, playing 56 snaps overall.
The first one I wanted to highlight came on the Falcons’ first drive.
Queen does a nice job of working through traffic, staying clean off blocks and getting to the perimeter to get a shot at Falcons running back Bijan Robinson.
He does everything right leading up to the point of contact, but he attempts to go high with an arm tackle on Robinson, which isn’t going to cut it.
Robinson easily slips right through Queen’s tackle attempt and turns the corner, leading to a good gain.
Later in the game, Queen missed in the fourth quarter one play before cornerback Donte Jackson’s pivotal interception.
Queen gets off the block late in the rep and is square to get a tackle attempt on Robinson. He wraps up this time, but Robinson is so powerful that he’s able to spin out of Queen’s tackle attempt, leaving the veteran linebacker wondering how in the world he missed another tackle.
While it was a tough day for Queen, it’s not something to be overly concerned about, at least right now. Historically, Queen misses a lot of tackles — he had 82 missed tackles in four seasons in Baltimore — but some of Sunday’s struggles could be chalked up to limited playing time in the preseason when he was dealing with an injury.
It takes time to get up to speed from a running and hitting perspective, especially in regular-season games. Hopefully he can clean it up moving forward, but nothing to be alarmed with just yet. A larger sample size in Pittsburgh is needed.
Though the Steelers struggled to tackle on Sunday, their offense and special teams gave the Falcons fits from a forced missed tackles perspective. The Steelers forced 12 missed tackles, meaning they won the all-important game within the game of the tackling battle with a mark of +5 to move to 1-0 on the year.
TOTAL FORCED MISSED TACKLES AT FALCONS — 12
Najee Harris – 5
Justin Fields – 3
Jaylen Warren – 2
George Pickens – 1
Calvin Austin III – 1 (special teams)
In the first regular-season game under Arthur Smith as offensive coordinator, Najee Harris ran extremely hard, setting the tone for the season offensively for the Black and Gold, at least from a run-game perspective.
After having his fifth-year option declined back in May, Harris has attacked things head-on, being quite a leader and has played well.
That continued on Sunday. The fourth-year running back was a handful for the Falcons.
Early on, Harris showed what type of day it was going to be.
Nice run here out of shotgun from Harris. His contact balance is good, and he just runs so hard behind his pads.
You simply aren’t ever going to bring down Harris with an arm tackle. He’s made that very clear throughout his career, and he did so again on Sunday against the Falcons. It’s going to take a host of players to bring him down, too.
In the fourth quarter, Harris had his best run as the Steelers wore down the Falcons.
He might not have won the Angry Runs of the Week scepter from Good Morning Football’s Kyle Brandt, but he sure tried his darnedest to add another one to the trophy case.
In Smith’s offense, Harris is going to get a ton of work, and he’s going to hammer defenders time and time again. He appears poised for a big year.
