The Pittsburgh Steelers’ fake punt attempt in their Sunday win over the Washington Commanders was the team’s most aggressive play on a day when it was pretty aggressive overall. Had the Steelers lost, it would’ve been the defining play of the game even if it occurred in the first quarter. Miles Killebrew throwing to a wide-open James Pierre, who dropped a surefire first down. It gave Washington the ball inside Pittsburgh’s red zone, setting up a Commanders touchdown to tie the game.
Afterwards, Mike Tomlin said he expected to call it early while Pierre said he had practiced all week for it. So what did Danny Smith and the Steelers see to compel them to have this play ready to go? Let’s go to the tape.
First, let’s review the Steelers’ call. On 4th and 15 from their 16-yard-line, Killebrew took the direct snap from LS Christian Kuntz and threw to Pierre at the top. Pre-snap, the Commanders pinched their right jammer to the top of the screen, showing a blitz look off the edge. It left Pierre uncovered and led to the check into the fake attempt.
These aren’t created out of thin air. Teams don’t wake up and decide to run a fake like this for no reason or on the off chance the opposition shows a look. It’s calculated and planned based on tape study. In Week 8 against the Chicago Bears, the Commanders showed this look twice.
On 4th and 7 from the Bears’ own 7, the Commanders did something similar. In fact, they pinched both jammers to leave both gunners unblocked. They didn’t send everyone but blitzed the jammers and popped out the A-gap players to try and block.
Later in the game on 4th and 17 from Chicago’s 20, the Commanders did the same. Pinched both jammers, rushed them, and popped out the interior players.
What’s Washington trying to accomplish here? Like a defense, the Commanders are forcing the punting team to pinch in its protection and potentially leave the edges unblocked. Gotta block it up inside/out and you have to assume the interior players will rush. If you don’t and they do rush, now you have A-gap players free with a direct path to the punter.
No different than defenses that mug the A-gaps with linebackers to force the o-line to pinch. And that’s the plan.
What’s interesting is these are the only two examples I could find. And I went through just about every punt against Washington this season. I thought the tendency might’ve been this look in every fourth-down situation either with the punting team backed up deep in its own territory or in 4th and forever. Situations where the punt team would feel it’s too risky to attempt a fake, giving Washington more comfort to leave the gunners uncovered. But as far as I can tell, these are the two.
I even checked some Seattle Seahawks tape last year when STs Coach Larry Izzo worked there, including the 2023 Steelers-Seahawks game. But Pittsburgh only punted once that game and Seattle didn’t present that look.
We do know the Steelers consider Izzo and Washington to be an aggressive unit. Tomlin said as much during his weekly interview with Steelers.com’s Bob Labriola.
“The special teams coordinator for the Commanders is Larry Izzo, and anybody who has been around ball a significant amount of time realizes the type of player Larry Izzo was as a special teamer. He was an aggressive, productive, combative player. And I think the fact that they’re kicking and covering kind of reflects his demeanor and what he was as a player.”
That was primarily in reference to the Commanders not settling for touchbacks when they kick off, forcing returns and trusting their coverage team to gain yards. Which played out against Pittsburgh. The Steelers had five kick returns yesterday after recording only seven through the first eight games. That aggressiveness carried over to the Commanders’ punt rush.
That’s why Pittsburgh worked on this and had it built in. As we wrote about yesterday, this is a check if the Steelers get the right look. If the Commanders kept pinching their jammers, Killebrew, the PP/up back and quarterback of the punt team, had the freedom to check into this and throw to the ball to Pierre. He threw it to him and not WR Ben Skowronek because the Commanders only brought in one jammer. The other stayed on Skowronek, probably because the Commanders didn’t want to leave a wide receiver uncovered, something that might encourage a throw. It also helped that Killebrew could make the throw to the boundary side, a shorter and more manageable throw than the field side.
So that seems to be the reason. Again, seems kinda light to work on this based off one game two weeks ago unless there’s other instances I’m missing. Maybe evidence from earlier in Izzo’s career. But Smith banked on being able to counter this look. Pittsburgh got what it wanted and Killebrew threw a good ball. Pierre, unfortunately, just couldn’t hang on. Tomlin showed no regrets.
While the result was poor, the process was good, and I don’t fault the decision. It was informed off tape study and Pittsburgh again proved to be one step ahead of its opponent, using the bye week for extra prep, and just got unlucky with the outcome.
