Trying to tell a fellow Steelers fan how important a healthy safety Troy Polamalu is to the Steelers defense is like proclaiming that water is indeed wet. It is a pretty obvious statement. That being said, I was thrilled to learn just a few days ago that Polamalu would be heading down to Orlando to work out with Tom Shaw (ETA: I have been alerted by sources close to Troy that despite the claim made by Shaw, Polamalu will remain working out in California) and the other group of Steelers players that include Ike Taylor, James Farrior and William Gay. In the past Troy has chosen to work out in the Read more [...]

I was doing some initial research on the Steelers 2011 opponents since the official regular season schedule was released yesterday and have compiled both the offensive and defensive rankings of all of their opponents from the 2010 season as a quick reference to get a better idea of what areas teams they face need to improve in via the draft and free agency as they head into the 2011 season. I will have more detail breakdowns on this after the draft, but wanted to get these out there while I have them at my finger tips. 2010 Offensive Rankings Team YDS/GM YDS/PLY RYDS/GM RYDS/PLY PYDS/GM Read more [...]

The Steelers cornerbacks were shut out in the latest ESPN Power Rankings that the panel of ESPN bloggers put out today and it is not too surprising. Not one of the Steelers corners is considered a shut-down corner type and that includes Ike Taylor. The Steelers defense under coordinator Dick LeBeau is one that is predicated on not giving up the big explosive play of 20 yards or more and is focused more on making teams be patient in their passing game and take what is given them underneath. The cornerbacks in the Steelers secondary are expected to quickly close on the receiver and wrap up the receiver Read more [...]

I was looking at the top cornerbacks in 2010 according Pro Football Focus and wanted to break down where the top 20 were drafted and have a look at their height, weight, 40 times and vertical jumps from either their combine or pro day. I was looking for any keys to a particular size of a corner drafted early that stands to have success. No such thing really. Let me say that all 40 times are pretty misleading as in my opinion, a player really does not have an official 40 time, they have a range. Ranges meaning he was a 4.3, 4.4 or 4.5 guy. As far as the measurables go, it is doubtful a player Read more [...]

In the table below I wanted to get a better look at the Steelers wide receivers by down in relation to their targets, yards per target, catch percentage and first down production during the regular season. I left out the Arnaz Battle and his two targets because they just don't matter. If you are curious, both were incomplete. Not that it needs reinforcing, but the numbers that Mike Wallace put up are staggering no matter how you slice them up. The 61% completion rate and the 21 yards per catch is pretty mind boggling considering that 43% of the balls thrown to him were of the deep variety. Also, Read more [...]

After taking a closer look at the redzone woes of the Steelers yesterday and measuring by successful plays, I wanted to dig even further into the red zone running stats of not only the Steelers, but how they matched up against the other 31 teams as well. The numbers below are for running backs and fullbacks only that carried the ball inside the red zone during the 2010 regular season. Below is the heading description for each column in the table. PLY - Number of total running plays by a running back or fullback in the red zone. YDS - Total combined rushing yards by a running back or fullback Read more [...]

I wanted to take a long hard look at the Steelers redzone woes in 2010, so I used a crude successful play formula to get a better look at both the passing game and running game for the Steelers on plays inside the opponents redzone. Now defining a successful play is very tricky, but I will I tell you the criteria I used in the stats and tables below. Generally, a play is deemed as a success when the following occurs: 40% of yards‐to‐go are gained on 1st down; 60% of yards‐to‐go on 2nd down; or 100% of yards‐to‐go on 3rd & 4th down. So in other words, a pass or run play on 1st and Read more [...]

Stats in a NFL gamebook or players stats listing almost never tell the whole story. Such is the case with Steelers kicker Shaun Suisham. With the new rule being approved that moves the kickoff up from the 30 to the 35 yard-line, I wanted to get a clearer picture of his kickoffs from last season. I went back and watched all of his 2010 kickoffs with the Steelers and that included the playoffs as well. In the table below, I have documented every one of his kickoffs. I did not include the two in which he had to re-kick due to penalty however. You will see I listed the reported temperature, wind Read more [...]

I have been hearing and reading some comments as of late of how the Steelers really need right side offensive line help because the run blocking was not good. This is an absolutely asinine statement. Sure the Steelers had some flip flopping at the right guard spot during the season, but once Ramon Foster settled in the spot, he did a pretty good job. Flozell Adams was signed and made the conversion from left tackle to right tackle as well. He really did an admirable job picking up the position. The table below shows directional running for all 32 teams during the 2010 regular season. It is also Read more [...]

I started this research initially to see how the Steelers did against the other 31 teams percent wise at staying out of 3rd and long situations and when they were in 3rd and long, how they did converting them. For this stat project I used 6-10 yards as the variable for "long" on 3rd downs. In the sortable table below, the first column is the number of plays each team ran needing between 1 and 10 yards for a first down. The second column is the number of plays ran on 3rd down needing 6-10 yards for a first down. The 3rd column is the percentage of the first and second columns to find out the percent Read more [...]

I was curious to find out how many times Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was sacked on 3rd down pass plays during the 2010 regular season and thought while I was at it, I would compile the same stats for all 32 teams to see where the Steelers ranked at in protecting the quarterback on 3rd downs. I had a feeling I knew what I would find and the results confirmed it. The sortable table below shows that Steelers quarterbacks where sacked 24 times on 3rd down pass plays during the 2010 regular season. 17 of the 24 times it was Roethlisberger getting sacked with Charlie Batch next at 3 times, Read more [...]

I was doing some research on 1st round underclassmen cornerbacks that have been drafted over the years and came across this article a few years back by Pat Kirwan on NFL.com. Kirwan looked at the risk involved by position of the underclassmen drafted in the 1st round going back ten years at the time. I am focusing on cornerbacks here, so went right to his risk grade of 2 of that position. It happens to be the highest risk according to him by the positions that received a grade in his article. I wanted to take a closer look using the Pro Football Reference Approximate Value (AV) method that Read more [...]

In this exercise I wanted to take a hard look at the 1st round tackles drafted since 1995 and the success not only through the first five years, but more specifically in years one through three. This is by no means a fail safe measurement stick, but nearly a look at the 1st round tackles using the Approximate Value attached to each player by Pro Football Reference. Instead of explaining the madness behind the AV number in this post, I suggest you read up on it here. In a quick and dirty summation, the Approximate Value (AV) method is an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a Read more [...]

After every NFL Combine is over, everyone immediately starts looking to the combine results as a form of measurement of future success. We have seen time and time again how these numbers are often forced to hold too much water in measuring the potential success. With the Steelers certainly having a need at the cornerback position early in the 2011 NFL draft, I thought it would be good to research how the current top cornerbacks performed during their combine or pro days to sort of debunk just looking at these results. I started by first looking at the top 20 all-around cornerbacks from 2010 Read more [...]

Now that Former Steelers safety Carnell Lake has been interviewed by Mike Tomlin for the open defensive backs coaching position, I thought it would be fun to dig up the numbers of the secondary he coached for one season at UCLA. Lake inherited a young cornerback unit, with Alterraun Verner the only player with extensive playing time, and then lost it's second best player, Aaron Hester to a fractured tibia during the season opener. Here are some of the members of that secondary he coached and their stats: Player Int Yds TD Asst Solo Pass Def Rahim Moore 10 79 0 13 36 7 Alterraun Read more [...]

The 2011 NFL Scouting Combine is underway in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Lucas Oil Stadium and we are starting to compile the 2011 NFL Combine Results. The scouting combine is an invitation only event, open only to invited college players and NFL team officials. The testing and evaluations include: physical measurements, injury evaluation, drug screen, cybex test, wonderlic test, interviews, 40 yard dash, 225 lb bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 20-yard shuttle, 60-yard shuttle, three-cone drill and position-specific drills. Below are links to each specific player position grouping. The Read more [...]

Below is the Super Bowl XLV charted stats of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers against the Steelers defense along with pass rush numbers, formations and personnel used by the Packers and the defense the Steelers were in. Also the blitz numbers. as you can see, Rodgers was damn good against everything thrown at him despite the 3 sacks. The Packers offensive line and backs did a great job of picking up the blitz as Rodgers was not hit or pressured much all night. He was able to get the ball out quick and throws were on the money for the most part. According to my numbers, he was 11 of 15 against Read more [...]

We all have heard the phrase, "Make big plays and don't turn the ball over." It sounds cliché, but former Ravens head coach and NFL Network analyst Brian Billick has a stat for it. It is called, "toxic differential." It has been around and discussed several times. It is it's a risk-reward stat and it is made up of two parts. The first part is how many big plays/explosive gains (20-plus yards) teams make minus how many they allow defensively. It also is made up of the basic takeaways versus giveaways stat. In short you take the big play differential and then add the takeaway differential and you Read more [...]

By Michael Shouse This is an article on the officiating crew for Super Bowl XLV between the Steelers and Packers. Just as it would be for an umpire in any professional sports league, getting to officiate a Super Bowl is a really big deal and a mark of prestige. Here is the Super Bowl XLV crew with the crew they belonged to in the regular season in parentheses… Referee Walt Anderson Umpire Chad Brown (Ed Hochuli) Head Linesman Kent Payne (Carl Cheffers ) Field Judge Doug Rosenbaum (Jerome Boger) Line Judge John Hussey (Pete Morelli) Side Judge Mike Weatherford (Gene Steratore) Back Read more [...]

I have charted both of the Steelers 2010 playoff games and here is the defense against every pass and drop-back in both games along with a play by play breakdown of both games along with those totals. I included the formations used by the offense and the first table is an explanation of those formations. It should be noted that if a tight end was lined up as a wide receiver, he was counted as a wide receiver in the package. The same goes for a running back lined up as a wide receiver and so on. The package explanation better paints the picture of the formation used more so than the actual player Read more [...]