The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Philadelphia Eagles largely because they got outplayed on both sides of the ball. But if there was one area where they had a chance to steal a win, it was the turnover margin. The Steelers had an early plus-two lead in turnover margin with a forced fumble by T.J. Watt and a forced fumble by Mark Robinson on the punt-coverage team. The only issue is, they managed just three points off the two takeaways.
Charlie Batch joined Randy Baumann on 102.5 WDVE’s Morning Show and discussed one thing he wants to see the Steelers improve on. If they had scored more points off the turnovers, he thinks it could have changed the entire complexion of the Eagles game.
“There’s always three or four plays in a game you’re like, ‘Man, if we make this play, the outcome could have been different,'” Batch said. “To me, the key point was early in that first quarter you create two turnovers. One at the 50, one in good field position in the red zone and you only get three points out of it. If you get 14 points, that changes the whole narrative of that game. It forces them to play from behind and then you never know how the rest of the game was gonna unfold.”
Two touchdowns would have been great, but I would have settled for 10 points off the two turnovers. Getting just three is painful, especially when they have the best kicker in the NFL who can hit anything under 60 yards with amazing consistency.
The first turnover near the 50 resulted in a three-and-out. The Steelers had two incomplete passes and then an 11-yard sack on Russell Wilson. They couldn’t even gain a yard let alone score a touchdown.
The second turnover looked pretty good at first with Najee Harris leaping over defenders for a decent gain. The only issue is a scuffle resulted in two flags on the Steelers to put them behind the chains, forcing them to settle for a field goal. I don’t really put that one on the Steelers because it was officiated poorly.
The Steelers are forcing the most turnovers in the league. It’s one of the big reasons why they are 10-4 and in position to win the AFC North. But they aren’t very efficient at scoring off them.
Here is a chart via TruMedia for the whole league showing turnovers forced and points off turnovers. The Steelers are below the trendline, which means they are inefficient at scoring on their sudden-change opportunities. 
On 30 turnovers, they have scored 88 points. That is 2.93 points per turnover, which is less than a field goal per opportunity. The league average is 3.25 points, which adds up over the course of 30 turnovers.
“This Steelers team [has] been great at creating turnovers, just not producing points off of them,” Batch said.
Meanwhile, the Eagles forced one turnover with Najee Harris fumbling on a toss play, and they turned it into a 13-play drive to score seven points. That was ultimately the difference in this game.
One of the big advantages the Steelers have entering the playoffs is the ability to win the turnover battle. The extra possessions are great, but they only matter if they capitalize with points.
