In my 7 things to watch article this past Saturday I noted that the Steelers would be best served to keep Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco in as many 3rd down and long situations as possible, preferably 3rd and 6 or more based on the numbers he has put up this year. Entering the game last night, Flacco had just a 43.1% completion ratio on 3rd downs this season and an even lower 40.0% completion ratio on 3rd down and 6 or more. As it turned out last night, Flacco was put in 3rd and 6 or more 10 times and he completed 8 of 10 passes with all 8 completions producing first downs. The last completion Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers formation & personnel rushing and passing stats from the week 8 game against the New England Patriots along with the year to date formation stats through the first 8 games of the 2011 season. I have disclaimered how we do the formation stats in previous post so you should know the drill by now. If you are just finding this info, please refer to the previous weeks post for clarification. If you want to get a better look at the personnel used on a certain page, please refer to the offensive participation charts. Looking at the Patriots game from a personnel standpoint the Read more [...]

I went ahead and cobbled together the TOX stats from week 8 to get them out of the way and teams with a plus 2 TOX this week went 7-2 overall. The Chargers were a bad snap away from making it 8-1. Year to date in head to head games the plus 2 teams are 62-16 for a 79% winning percentage. That is 1% off of the expected 80% number. Damn those Chargers. Teams with a mere positive TOX stat went 8-3 this week. Teams with a positive turnover differential went 7-2 overall and teams with a positive explosive play differential went 8-4 this week. Year to date the Lions have now busted a positive 20 Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers coverage stats for the week 8 Sunday afternoon game against the New England Patriots. They are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. The big thing that sticks out this week is how good the defense did for the most part at not allowing many yards after the catch against a team that has made a living off it this season. On 24 completions the Patriots had 91 yards after the catch, Read more [...]

Below are the formation rushing and passing stats from the week 7 game against the Arizona Cardinals along with the year to date stats through the first 7 games of the 2011 season. One word of caution. The formations are different from the actual personnel on the field as my game charters will list an h-back player at the snap as a running back. This would mean that players like Hines Ward, David Johnson or Heath Miller for example were charted formation wise as being a running back as this gives you a better picture of the formation actually used on a play. The same goes if Miller or a running Read more [...]

The New England Patriots head into the Sunday game against the Steelers with a league best 350.5 passing yards a game average and they are tied for second in the league with a 9.1 yards per attempt. Lost in all of those great stats are the yards after the catch that the Patriots have racked up in 6 games this season. Of the 2,163 passing yards that quarterback Tom Brady has amassed this year, 993 have come after the catch. This is 46% of his passing yards this season. Leading the way of course in YAC for the Patriots is Wes Welker. Welker leads the NFL through week 7 with 392 yards after the Read more [...]

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin tried to heap praise per his usual on Tuesday during his press conference by claiming that the New England Patriots defense is not as bad as their 32nd ranking, especially in the passing game. Tomlin stated that it is a function of them just whacking people and being way out in front so opponents are throwing the ball every down and accumulating some yards. Let's suppose that Tomlin considers a whacking being up by 14 or more points at any point in a game. Below are the quarterback passing stats against the Patriots this year that match this definition. They have Read more [...]

As the Steelers head into their two biggest games of the season, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is warming up at just the right time. Through the first 4 games of the season it was obvious that his accuracy was a bit off and his week 1 performance against the Ravens was one to forget. After the week 4 loss to the Texans, Roethlisberger had an 80.2 passer rating with a 62% completion rating. He still had a very respectable yards per pass average though of 8.3, thanks to Mike Wallace, but he also had thrown 5 interceptions compared to just 3 touchdown passes. He was pretty banged up as we all know Read more [...]

Finished the TOX stats from week 7 around the NFL a little bit early this week along with the year to date totals. If you are just finding this, make sure to look back at the links below to get a better understanding of what the TOX stat actually is and how it works. Week 1 is a great place to start as it also includes a video. The plus 2 teams went 6-0 this week. Year to date in head to head games the plus 2 teams are 55-14 for an expected 80% winning percentage. That number as I have mentioned before, should hover right around there throughout the season. Teams with a mere positive TOX stat went Read more [...]

Lost in the Steelers 5-2 start this year is the play of punter Daniel Sepulveda and the Steelers punt coverage teams. Through 7 games Sepulveda has punted 24 times for a 46.8 average. That his currently 3 full yards better than his career average of 43.8. His net average thus far is 39.4 and that too is better than his career net average of 38.3. Sepulveda has had the one block against the Titans however, the first of his career, but has dropped 8 inside the opponents 20 with 4 of them being downed and 2 being fair caught. He also has a career long this year of 66 and three in total over 60 Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers coverage stats for the week 7 Sunday afternoon game against the Arizona Cardinals. They are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. The big number that sticks out is of course the 73 yard touchdown to running back LaRod Stephens-Howling after a 5 yard catch with James Farrior in trail. That truly inflated the yards passing allowed and was nearly half of the yards after the catch Read more [...]

OK, here we go with the TOX stats from week 6 around the NFL along with the year to date totals. If you are just finding this, make sure to look back at the links below to get a better understanding of what the TOX stat is. The plus 2 teams went 8-3 this week. Year to date in head to head games the plus 2 teams are 49-14 for a 78% winning percentage. That is just a hair below the expected 80% number. Teams with a mere positive TOX stat went 9-3 this week. Teams with a positive turnover differential went 6-4 overall and teams with the positive explosive play differential also went 8-3 this week. Year Read more [...]

Below are the long passing stats of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for his career through week 6 of this season and they are broken down by year and by distance thrown. The top table is the grand total of all passes 21 yards or more. The headings should be pretty straight forward and I included the total amount of passing attempts in the next to last column and the last column is the percentage of the long balls thrown of all attempts. The first thing that sticks out this season is that only 9% of all passes thrown this year have been 21 yards or longer. This is 2% less than his Read more [...]

Below are the formation rushing and passing stats from the week 5 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars along with the year to date stats through the first 6 games of the 2011 season. One word of caution. The formations are different from the actual personnel on the field as my game charters will list an h-back player at the snap as a running back. This would mean that players like Hines Ward, David Johnson or Heath Miller for example were charted formation wise as being a running back as this gives you a better picture of the formation actually used on a play. The same goes if Miller or a running Read more [...]

Gerry Dulac stated in his chat today that the Jacksonville Jaguars were consistently lining up 10 defensive players within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage this past Sunday. The theory behind that game plan was likely to take away the short quick passes that the Steelers used the week before against the Titans and additionally help support against the run on the windy day. One of my charters, Alan Gifford, saw this in the Dulac chat and charted it today play by play. Dulac was indeed correct as Alan found that on 36 of the 63 offensive snaps the Jaguars had 10 or more defensive players within Read more [...]

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger talked earlier today about wanting to run the no-huddle offense more moving forward and the stats tweet by Mark Kaboly got me curious to the Steelers stats running the no-huddle this year. As Kaboly states, Roethlisberger is 6 of 13 for 86 yards this year in the no-huddle with 1 interception and no touchdowns. He has also been sacked once. The Steelers only ran once in the no-huddle this season and it was an Issac Redman 2-yard run on 3rd and 1 from the Titans 29 yard-line. That play was the only time they have gone no-huddle in the 1st quarter this season. As Read more [...]

The Steelers now have 6 games in the books and one thing that sticks out in the stats as far as pass targets goes is that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is just not connecting with his second year receivers Emmanuel Sanders and Antonio Brown like he should. I have compiled the pass targets through the first 6 games below and as you can see, Roethlisberger only has a 46% completion rate to Brown and an even lower 40% completion rate to Sanders. Now the finger gets pointed to both Roethlisberger and the sophomore receivers here as we have seen Brown miss multiple hot reads thus far this season Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers coverage stats for the week 6 Sunday afternoon game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. They are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. Outside of a few plays the Steelers pass defense was once again solid against rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert allowing just 109 yards on 25 attempts. Ike Taylor gave up the touchdown to Jason Hill and almost gave up another big play had Gabbert Read more [...]

Below are the formation rushing and passing stats from the week 5 game against the Tennessee Titans along with the year to date stats through the first 5 games of the 2011 season. One word of caution. The formations are different from the actual personnel on the field as my game charters will list an h-back player at the snap as a running back. This would mean that players like Hines Ward, David Johnson or Heath Miller for example were charted formation wise as being a running back as this gives you a better picture of the formation actually used on a play. If you want to look at the actual personnel Read more [...]

I have finally gotten around to getting the TOX stats together from week 5 around the NFL and the plus 2 teams went 5-3 this week. Year to date in head to head games the plus 2 teams are 41-11 for a 79% winning percentage. Teams with a mere positive TOX stat went 7-4 this week. Teams with a positive turnover differential went 7-3 overall and teams with the positive explosive play differential also went 7-3 this week. Year to date the Lions still lead with a plus 14 TOX after a dead even week. They are joined at the top now by the 49ers who had a plus 7 week. The Steelers still are recovering Read more [...]