The Pittsburgh Steelers keep rolling in wins. We’ll keep rolling in the weird.
– For the first time in the history of the Steelers-Ravens rivalry, a team won without scoring a touchdown. Pittsburgh defeated Baltimore, 18-16, thanks to six Chris Boswell field goals.
– It’s the 12th time in franchise history the Steelers have won a regular-season game without a touchdown and fourth under Mike Tomlin (who also has such a playoff victory). The others prior to this season came in 2008 against the Los Angeles Chargers (where the refs took away a Troy Polamalu touchdown on the final play) and the 3-0 Mud Bowl in 2007 against the Miami Dolphins. In the postseason, they beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 18-16, in the 2016 AFC Divisional Round.
– Pittsburgh is the first team to win multiple games in a season without scoring a touchdown since the 2016 Los Angeles Rams, who beat the Seattle Seahawks, 9-3, and New York Jets, 9-6, that year.
– Since 2007 and including the playoffs, the Steelers are 5-10 in games in which they don’t score a touchdown. That’s a winning percentage of .333.
The rest of the NFL over that span? 39-544-1. A winning percentage of .068. Pittsburgh has five times the win rate as such games as the rest of the league. Incredible.
– Let’s stick with that 18-16 score. Including Sunday’s game and playoffs, there have been nine 18-16 games in NFL history. Four of those nine, 44 percent, have involved the Steelers, including the last three. The Steelers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 18-16, in that aforementioned playoff game and 18-16 the year before in the Wild Card game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Pittsburgh also lost the first-ever 18-16 game, falling to the Cleveland Browns in 1976.
– Facing impressive quarterbacks Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson the last two weeks, Pittsburgh’s defense has allowed just:
– 49.2-percent completion rate
– 6.1 YPA
– 1 TD
– 67.3 QB rating
It also has one interception.
Keep in mind Daniels came into that game with a 106.7 QB rating while Jackson entered Sunday sitting at 123.2.
– One more on the QB rating. Jackson came into Sunday with a QB rating above 100 for eight-straight games, tied for the third-longest single-season streak ever. He finished Sunday with a 66.1 QB rating, a season-low and his worst rating since…Week 5 against the Steelers last year (65.2).
You’d have to go back more than two years to Week 4 of 2022 to find his last game with a lower quarterback rating posting, a 63.0 in a loss to the Buffalo Bills.
– Steelers WR George Pickens finished Sunday with eight receptions. That’s the most he’s had in an NFL game. It’s the most receptions he’s had in a game since November 2020 while at Georgia, recording eight in a win over Mississippi State. The only game he’s ever logged more came in 2019 when he notched 12 against Baylor.
– Chris Boswell is on pace to finish 2024 with 49 field goals, which would obliterate the NFL single-season record of 44 set by David Akers in 2011.
– Boswell has now made 39 career field goals of 50-plus yards. He is responsible for 59.1 percent of all 50-plus yard field goals made in franchise history, 39 of 66. No one else has more than eight.
He has made 83.0 percent of his field goals from 50-plus yards (39 of 47).
To put that in perspective, Boswell’s overall field goal percentage is 88.1, fifth in NFL history. If you took just his percentage from 50-plus yards and ranked it in NFL history of all kicks, he would slot 41st. That’s mind-blowing for him to be a top-41 accurate kicker based just off his 50-plus yard range.
For further perspective, his field goal rate from 50-plus is better than the career make rates of Jeff Reed, Brandon McManus, Mason Crosby, David Akers, Sebastian Janikowski, and Jason Elam. And everyone else not in that top 40 ahead of him.
– P Corliss Waitman shined Sunday, too. He punted four times, averaging 56.5-yards. It’s the second-highest average by a Steelers punter with at least four punts in franchise history, only trailing Bobby Joe Green’s 57.5-yard average in a 1960 win over the Cleveland Browns.
– With Sunday’s performance, Waitman is up to 47.2 yards per punt this season. If that holds, it will be a Pittsburgh single-season record. Green’s 47.0-yard remains the high watermark set all the way back in 1961.
– Pittsburgh finished Sunday going 4-of-16 on third down. It marks its 123rd game in recorded history with at least 16 third-down attempts in a game. The only time the Steelers converted less came in 2008 when they went 3-of-16 in a win over the Dallas Cowboys.
This is the fifth time Pittsburgh’s converted only four times. But the Steelers are 4-2 in games with this ugly of a conversion rate so hey, at least there’s that.
– Pittsburgh ran exactly 20 more plays than Baltimore (74 to 54). But the Ravens averaged exactly two more yards than the Steelers (6.1 to 4.1).
– The Steelers possessed the ball for 36:22 against the Ravens. Excluding overtime games, it’s the best TOP Pittsburgh has had against Baltimore since 2018 and its fourth-best mark ever.
Pittsburgh is 5-0 against the Ravens when it has the ball for at least 36 minutes.
– Pittsburgh has allowed just 13 third-quarter points this season. And over the last four games, the Steelers have given up just 28 second-half points, an average of seven per game. Pretty incredible.
