Throughout much of the 2024 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers were one of the best tackling teams in football, missing the fewest tackles among all 32 teams in the league. But then, things fell apart late in the season.
At one point, the Steelers missed 36 tackles in two games. Despite the struggles in the tackling department, the Steelers still finished as one of the best teams in the tackling department on the year, finishing fourth overall in tackling efficiency, according to NFL.com and Next Gen Stats.
Within that high-end tackling efficiency, safety DeShon Elliott was the best efficiency mark the NFL has seen since 2018, forming a stout pairing with Minkah Fitzpatrick in the tackling department. The Steelers as a team finished behind only the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, and Denver Broncos in the tackling efficiency metric.
“The Steelers’ 89.1% tackling efficiency this season left them within 0.2 percentage points of the Chiefs for the league lead, and their 18 forced fumbles tied with the Eagles for most in the NFL. DeShon Elliott converted 108 of 111 tackle opportunities for a 97.3% efficiency mark, the highest in Next Gen Stats tackle data since 2018 (minimum of 100 attempts),” Next Gen Stats writes of the Steelers finishing fourth in the NFL. “He and Minkah Fitzpatrick (93.2%) might have formed the best-tackling safety duo in the league.
“If the Steelers can find an effective replacement for free-agent cornerback Donte Jackson (credited with 12 missed tackles for 111 extra yards), they could be positioned to reach even greater heights.”
In the season’s first 14 weeks, Pittsburgh was darn good in the tackling department defensively. They rarely missed tackles, which was a continuation of what they had done in recent years. But then, in Weeks 15 and 16 against the Philadelphia Eagles and the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers fell off a cliff.
In those two games, the Steelers missed a combined 36 tackles —20 against the Eagles and 16 against the Ravens. The 20 misses against the Eagles were easily a season-worst and raised major questions about the Steelers’ defense moving forward.
Fortunately, Pittsburgh cleaned it up in Weeks 17 and 18, missing just four tackles on Christmas Day against the Chiefs and then just another four against the Bengals to close the season. Things seemed to be back in line for the Steelers’ defense entering the playoffs from a tackling perspective.
Against the Ravens in the AFC Wild Card Round, though, things turned back into a mess. The Steelers missed 14 tackles, surpassing the eight they missed in the previous two games combined. In the final two games of the year against the Ravens, the Steelers combined to miss 30 tackles.
It put a real damper on the season as a whole, but fortunately, the Steelers still finished among the league’s elite in the tackling department, which is something to build on.
Here at Steelers Depot, I charted Elliott for just one missed tackle on the season, good for an elite 0.8% missed tackle rate. That’s the best season-long number I’ve ever charted here, and I started doing missed tackles charting in Week 1 of the 2016 season.
Linebacker Patrick Queen led the Steelers in missed tackles with 22 on the season but had just a 13.9% missed tackles rate. Among all regulars that saw consistent playing time, outside linebacker Nick Herbig had the highest missed tackles rate on the team, missing 14 stops on 36 total attempts for a 39% missed tackles rate.
