Today, I wanted to look at how rushing offenses have fared through Week 4, using success rates by down, game halves, and weekly views as well. Let’s jump right in.
First, let’s look at early down success rates league wide (with scrambles, kneels, and aborted/penalty plays excluded):
- First Down Rush Success = A rush that gains 40-percent or more of the needed yardage.
- Second Down Rush Success = A rush that gains 50-percent or more of the needed yardage.
Very telling visual. We see that Pittsburgh’s running game has thoroughly struggled on first down so far in 2024, with an abysmal 35.7-percent success rate that ranks 31st through four games. That’s painful to see, creating less advantageous second and third down situations.
Also, considering first down is the most frequent by far, this impacts the total rushing success rate the most. If this can improve, it will go a long way to the Steelers playing more to their identity on offense. Here’s to hoping that occurs starting next week against the Dallas Cowboys, who are the only offense with a worse first down rushing success rate (34.1-percent).
Surprisingly good news for Pittsburgh on second down, with a well above-average 64.3 success rate on second down, the eighth-best rushing offense to date. The Steelers also have the second-most attempts (27), compared to tying for 27th on first down. Defenses expect run more on first down, and the rates show Pittsburgh’s running game has capitalized on second down.
Second and long runs are something we scream at the television about at Steelers Depot. Cutting those down would likely lead to an elite number, and ultimately less/better late down situations.
Speaking of which, here are late downs, where third and fourth downs that pick up a first down are considered a success:
Back to bottoming results, with Pittsburgh’s 47.5-percent late down rushing success ranking 26th in the NFL. Yes, sometimes it’s a cat-and-mouse game on third and long with the Steelers strong defense and a willingness to punt it away, living to see another drive. But, the discouraging third and shorts, unable to pick up a first down too often as a run-oriented team has been rather frustrating. Knock on wood this turns around soon.
Now for the full picture, total rushing success rates:
In totality, the rushing offense for the Pittsburgh Steelers rank 25th in success rate currently, at 47.9-percent. That is not good enough for this teams identity. For added context, the NFL average through four games is 52.2-percent, and even some strong teams are above 60-percent. For example, the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs top the league with a 65.2-percent success rate.
Friendly reminder, scrambles are excluded from this data, so these rates largely reflect how running backs have fared in their offenses. Here’s some Steelers RB numbers that add to the story.
Najee Harris: 68 attempts, 3.4 yards per attempt
Cordarrelle Patterson: 16 attempts, 5.8 yards per attempt
Jaylen Warren: 14 attempts, 3.9 yards per attempt
Aaron Shampklin: 1 attempt, 5.0 yards per attempt
Not ideal for Harris to say the least, who easily has the most carries. So many factors, like the offensive line that has been riddled with injuries and inconsistent performance, and how defenses game plan. Last weeks abysmal 19 yards on 13 carries (1.5 YPA) was most painful to date when Indianapolis played eight men in the box 23.1-percent of the time against Harris.
He hovered around 70 yards the other three games so far, with two of them facing eight box defenders at 10-percent or less. Week Two was the highest rate against Harris (29.4) in 2024 but still posted 69 yards (4.1 YPA) against the Denver defense who are in the top ten in YPA allowed. The Colts have allowed the second-most rush yards this season, so hopefully Harris’ worst rushing game last week was a painful outlier of Steelers beating Steelers.
Patterson has the best YPA for Pittsburgh RBs, and was a positive last game. He had six carries and a healthy 7.2 YPA, and even Shampklin (recently on the practice squad) was also able to reel off a five-yarder. So, we see there was a clear objective to stop Harris.
Shampklin’s elevation came with Warren missing the game due to injury, hampered this year nd lacking his normal effectiveness when healthy. To boot, Warren may not be back anytime soon. Patterson also left with an ankle injury, so the battered position room will likely be leaning on Harris even more, with hopefully improved line play and better results moving forward.
I was also curious to see how rush offenses have performed by half:
Interestingly, the rates have been eerily similar, compared to my expectation of first halves being noticeably worse considering slow starts from the Steelers offense. Instead, both are below-average. Pittsburgh’s 48.0-percent success rate in the first half ranks 22nd, while 47.8-percent after halftime lands 23rd. Not much of a story here, other than consistently poor.
To wrap up, let’s look at a weekly breakdown for added context:
Despite the Week 4 loss, we see that Pittsburgh is coming off their only above=average rushing success rate on offense of 2024. They posted 60.0-percent success, largely from Patterson. This tied for 35th out of the 128 games played thus far, rather good but there’s room to improve.
As you might expect, last game featured Pittsburgh’s best results on early downs: 54.5-percent on first, and a 72.7-percent second down success rate. The latter ties for 23rd, contributing to such a high total second down success rate I broke down earlier.
Otherwise, the Steelers have been below the NFL average of 52.2-percent each week. Week 1 was their second-best (50.0), compared to 46.4-percent the previous game, and 36.7 in Week Two. The latter was the 13th-worst rushing success rate in the NFL this season, which will hopefully be the teams lowest number in 2024.
Encouraging though is an upward swing since. Dissecting this further, here are Pittsburgh’s down results per game:
Week One: First Down – 38.5. Second Down – 58.3. Late Downs – 55.6. Total – 50.0
Week Two: First Down – 25.0. Second Down – 63.6. Late Downs – N/A. Total – 36.7
Week Three: First Down – 31.3. Second Down – 62.5. Late Downs – 75.0. Total – 46.4
Week Four: First Down – 54.5. Second Down – 72.7. Late Downs – 33.3. Total – 60.0
Nice improvements overall, with the exception last week being late downs, which of course killed some drives. Knock on wood Pittsburgh stays above-the-line this week, putting their most complete rushing performance on display against Dallas, and onward. Injuries to the running back and offensive line rooms complicates this hope on paper, but this was also true last game, and optimistically “next man up” continues.
Some specific improvement areas to focus on should be first and late downs, which would go a long way in Pittsburgh improving their total success rate, and personally would love to see first half become an above-average number. Achieving these feats along with remaining strong on second down would play beautifully into their goals on offense, and fulfilling their identity more consistently.
