If you are anything like me, you grew a little frustrated last season with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ approach when they got the ball back at the end of the first half. Oftentimes, they would kneel on the ball and kill the clock to go to halftime.
I went back through each of the Steelers’ 17 regular-season games in 2023 and counted the number of times they took a knee to kill the clock before heading into the half.
Below is a chart of each of those instances, including the time remaining on the clock, the score in the game, and their decision. They got the ball with under a minute left nine times. Six of those times, they opted to kneel on the ball to end the half. One other was one running play with 38 seconds remaining to end the half.
Their approach was passive. You can draw any conclusions that you want, but that is the data. Maybe it was a lack of confidence in Matt Canada’s offense, or a lack of confidence in Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky as the quarterbacks.
The two times they actually tried were at the end of the season with their backs against the wall as their playoff path narrowed. Are you going to get points out of these scenarios most of the time? Probably not, but you never will if you don’t try. And for a head coach who often talks about not living in his fears, it seemed a bit fearful.
| 2023 | ||||
| Opponent | Week | Time Remaining | Score (Steelers’ First) | Decision |
| Browns | Week 2 | 0:22 | 14-16 | Kneel |
| Raiders | Week 3 | 0:38 | 13-7 | 1 run play, let clock expire |
| Ravens | Week 5 | 0:13 | 3-10 | Kneel |
| Rams | Week 7 | 0:12 | 3-9 | Kneel |
| Browns | Week 11 | 0:05 | 0-10 | Kneel |
| Cardinals | Week 13 | 0:15 | 3-10 | Kneel |
| Patriots | Week 14 | 0:19 | 10-21 | Kneel |
| Colts | Week 15 | 0:22 | 13-14 | 3 plays, no points |
| Seahawks | Week 17 | 0:36 | 17-14 | 2 plays, no points |
But that changed in Week 1 of the 2024 season. With a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback running the show, Tomlin decided to go for it.
“It’s team supporting team,” Tomlin said in a video of his press conference posted on the Steelers’ YouTube page. “We had a couple timeouts; we were trying to be aggressive there and respond. And we were able to do that, thankfully, and put three points on [the scoreboard] and make it a one-score game.”
The Falcons had just scored the only touchdown of the game, and the Steelers got the ball back with 32 seconds left in the half. The new touchback rule placed the ball at the 30-yard line. Instead of folding on the drive and trying to get to halftime, the Steelers came out swinging. They gained seven yards on a first-down pass to Calvin Austin III, and then five yards on a second-down completion to Pat Freiermuth.
Then they let one rip with Justin Fields finding George Pickens for a 33-yard gain.
Just like that, they advanced 45 yards and kicked a 44-yard field goal as the clock expired for halftime to make the score 10-9.
When you have a kicker as good as Chris Boswell, you always have to try to get in range no matter how unlikely it is to score. Hopefully this aggressive end-of-half trend continues this season.
