Your stats of the weird after a joyous win. Celebrate good times, come on!
– You know I always start with the score. This is only the second 45-10 game the Pittsburgh Steelers have ever been involved in. The other was a loss against the Los Angeles Rams in 1968, a year before Chuck Noll arrived.
– The Steelers third down offense was solid tonight after a bumpy start. They finished 8 for 13, 61.5%. That’s their best percentage since 2014.
Against the Indianapolis Colts. When they went 8 for 13. I dig this trend.
Last time the Steelers had a better percentage (minimum five attempts)? All the way back on October 21st, 2012, when they went 10 for 16 against the Cincinnati Bengals. So yeah, been awhile.
– Steelers’ offense was clicking tonight with 23 first downs (excluding penalties). Last time they had that many was 23 against the Washington Redskins in 2012.
– The Colts had just 11 first downs tonight. Fewest in a game allowed by the Steelers since October of 2012 (the aforementioned Bengals game). Only third time since 2010.
– Today marked just the 5th time in Ben Roethlisberger’s career he threw for over 300 yards with at least four touchdowns and zero interceptions.
– The Steelers have been sacked just four times over their last 189 pass attempts. That’s an average of one sack every 46 plays. Remarkably underrated stat.
– Roethlisberger’s 13 yard rush tonight was his longest since a 13 yard touchdown run against the Green Bay Packers in 2013.
– Martavis Bryant has scored a TD in 13 of his 18 career games. It’s his 10th career catch of 40+ yards. For all you math junkies out there, that means 16.1% of his career catches have gone for at least 40. 10 of 62, including playoffs. Number jumps to over 17% if you include only the regular season.
– With seven catches on the season, Jesse James has made the most productive season from a Steelers tight end not named Heath Miller since David Paulson in 2012, who also had 7 catches.
– James Harrison had his first three sack day since December 4th, 2011. A span of 209 weeks. At that projection, Harrison will get his next three sack game when he’s 41. Don’t count it out.
– Jarvis Jones recorded his first INT since his final year in college way back in September of 2012. It’s his first interception that didn’t go for 21 yards. All three of his in college were returned for exactly that many yards. Weird.
– In 162 career regular season games prior to 2015, Will Allen had never had a sack. Throw in his three years at Ohio State and you still get zero. In nine games this season, he has two. You go, Glen Coco.
– According to PFF, Brandon Boykin played more snaps tonight than he had in the entire 2015 season.
– Jacoby Jones joins Emmanuel Sanders and Willie Reid as the only Steelers since 1994 to fumble away an opening kickoff.
– Chris Boswell is the first Steelers’ kicker since Jeff Reed in 2010 to make two 50+ yard field goals in a season. Boswell has booted a pair of 51 yarders, including one against the Colts.
As far back as I can tell, Boswell is the first Steelers’ kicker ever to make two 50 yarders at home in a season. Dude is setting a lot of records this season.
– Jordan Berry has only had to punt four times over the last three weeks. No idea if that is a record for fewest over such a span but I imagine it’s at least close.
– 37 year old James Harrison sacked 40 year old Matt Hasselbeck tonight. It’s the oldest combined quarterback/defender sack since 36 year old Jason Taylor stripped sacked Brett Favre a day after his 41st birthday in 2010.
– Harrison is also the second oldest player in NFL history to record three sacks in a single game. Only Clay Matthews Sr, at the whopping age of 40 years and 233 days in 1996, was older. Harrison joins an exclusive list of just four other players 37+ years with three sacks in a game. Which includes Hall of Famers like Bruce Smith and Chris Doleman.
– Last one and we’ll send you on your way. The Steelers have now scored 30+ points in four games. That has never happened over the course of one season. There is only one such four game streak, spanning the final two regular season games of 1973 and the first two weeks of 1974. But never four in a row in the same year. Woah.
