Today, I wanted to look at and provide NFL data for explosive (20 yards or more) and negative plays (zero yards or less), considering these extreme end of the spectrum plays can make or break game outcomes. Let’s dive right in, with rates for offenses:
The Pittsburgh Steelers offense is near league average in each. Through Week 12, they have a 6.1 explosive play rate and 31.2negative play rate, each ranking 15th. That is an encouraging improvement from last year, with these numbers when I looked at explosive and negative plays through Week 15: 5.3 explosive (22nd) and 34.6 negative (26th).
Per my offseason studies on OC Arthur Smith, this is Pittsburgh’s best explosive play rate since at least 2019. Quite encouraging, especially considering we’ve seen a ceiling for even more with QB Russell Wilson. Fingers crossed.
On the preferable top right of the chart include the likes of some upcoming opponents: the Ravens and Eagles. Baltimore has an NFL-best 8.2-percent explosive play rate along with a 25.4-percent negative play rate (second), while Philadelphia’s 7.3 explosive and 26.4 negative rates rank sixth and third.
Cincinnati, Pittsburgh’s next challenge, land a rank higher at a 31.1 negative rate (14th), but a lower 5.8 explosive rate (19th). Kansas City has been strong in limiting negatives (26.8, fourth), but only a 4.5 explosive play rate. That ranks a lowly 26th.
We see some encouraging improvements from the 2024 Pittsburgh offense from prior seasons, and the strengths and weaknesses from opposing offenses that lie ahead. If Pittsburgh can trend positively, unlike their slippage against Cleveland (29th explosive, dead-last negative on offense), it would aid their success and postseason aspirations.
Let’s look at a weekly view of explosive and negative play counts for more context. The dots are league-wide results, the dark red line Pittsburgh’s negative plays, and dark green line explosive plays. The thinner lines of the same colors are NFL per game averages:
Lots of valuable info. What sticks out is a severe uptick of negative plays the last three games coming out of the Week 9 bye. The highest number of negative plays the first eight games was 21, coming in Week 7.
The first three games of 2024 were good in limiting negatives (15, 13, 17) going 3-0, but a caveat was a conservative passing offense with QB Justin Fields, particularly early on. Across weeks 4-7 Pittsburgh went 2-4, and with that more than average negative play rates. Week 8 was Wilson’s only ideal mark in the win against the Giants.
Post-bye: Week 10 (25), Week 11 (28), Week 12 (25). Considering the NFL average is 19.3, hopefully the staff and players did better on this mini-bye in attempts to buck this trend starting Week 13 against the Bengals.
Part of this is also the trust, and willingness for Wilson to take more deep shots. When looking at the bottom of the chart, we see Pittsburgh’s offense tied for their best explosive play total (six) against Cleveland in last week’s snow game (impressively), matching Wilson’s first start against the Jets in Week 7.
Since becoming the starter, Wilson and the Steelers have been above the 3.6 explosive play per game average in 4-of-5 games, en route to their 4-1 record. So, with greater reward (explosives) have brought more risk (negatives) overall, and particularly troubles on 4th down were too much to overcome in their loss to Cleveland on both sides of the ball.
Now let’s look at defensive results:
The Pittsburgh Steelers defense lands above the mean in each. Negative plays against opposing offenses has been their stronger attribute, at a 35.5 rate that ranks seventh, while a 5.6 explosive play rate could stand to improve (14th).
Both land better than their marks in 2023: 33.7 negative (ninth), 6.7 explosive (26th). While Pittsburgh has a bend don’t break reputation, they’ve given up far less explosive plays in 2024, thankfully. Part of this has been better overall health, particularly elite players, which knock on wood continues down the stretch with continued overall success.
Tough opponents though, including Philadelphia’s number one 4.4 explosive play rate defense, who also stifle at a 35.0 negative play rate (ninth). That will be a tough challenge in Week 15. They clearly have the best balance, but other strengths on the schedule concern. Baltimore’s defense has a fourth-ranked 35.9 negative play rate, and the Chiefs have a 4.7 explosive play rate (fifth).
Next up for Pittsburgh are the Bengals, who have limited explosive plays on defense (5.3, tenth), but haven’t created as many negative plays as their peers (29.2, 24th). With Pittsburgh’s offense poor trend of negative plays the last three games, hopefully that bodes well to a positive trend. The defense getting back to stacking negatives on Cincinnati’s offense, while limiting their explosiveness is concerning and high on my radar.
Here’s the weekly view to see how things have trended. The colors are reverse considering more negative plays (green) and less explosives (red) are the goal on defense:
While negative rates have been strong for Pittsburgh’s defense overall, we see it was also an issue in the Week 12 loss to Cleveland. Pittsburgh tied for their least negative plays created on defense (14), unexpected against the Browns largely woeful offense in 2024. As they say, any given Sunday, but that excuse adds context to why the divisional loss felt so painful.
The other lowly games with 14 negative plays came early, the season opener and Week 3, wins against the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Chargers. Week 4’s 27-24 loss to Indianapolis was slightly below the 19.3 NFL average (19). This means in 7-of-11 games, Pittsburgh’s defense has been above average, with a 6-1 record. They better get back to this, and if they do, they’ll get back to the win column.
On the flipside, Pittsburgh’s best games at limiting explosives came earlier in 2024. They have allowed at least one in every game this season. Just one in Weeks 1, 3, and 6. All three of those games were wins.
No games with two explosives, and their other games limiting the opposition better than average were Week 7, 10, and 12 (three explosives). That result was a 2-1 record, the loss coming last game against Cleveland.
In 5-of-11 games, Pittsburgh has allowed more explosives than the league average. Weeks 2, 4, 5, 8, and 11. Aside from the Week 2 win against Denver, Pittsburgh allowed five explosives in each of those contests, putting up a 2-2 record in the process.
So, the highest correlation to Pittsburgh’s wins and losses in 2024 are negative plays on defense. When they excel: 6-1. That has been crucial in the results of the last three games, above or below the line as their 2-1 record in the span indicates. The offense seeing a concerning uptick in negative plays will also be important to remedy, but easier said than done against against quality opponents, including these metrics.
Hopefully that’s the case starting Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals.
