5 things we learned: Steelers' Kenny Pickett ranks worst among NFL QBs in multiple stat categories

Five things we learned from Dolphins 16, Steelers 10:

1. Picking on Pickett

Now that Kenny Pickett is three starts (and 12½ quarters) into his NFL career, he’s had enough pass attempts to qualify for the league’s leaderboard for its rate statistics (the NFL minimum is 14 pass attempts per team game).

After looking at some of the numbers as they stand now, Pickett might not want to be a qualifier.

Among the 34 NFL qualified quarterbacks, Pickett is last in passer rating (66.7), interception percentage (5.5% of his passes), yards per completion (8.9) and the pro-football-reference.com metric adjusted yards per attempt (3.9). The latter, in effect, penalizes quarterbacks for interceptions moreso than pure yards per attempt, which treats an incompletion and interception equally.

Forget qualifiers — despite playing fewer than half of the season’s possible quarters, Pickett has thrown the third-most interceptions in the NFL of anyone (seven). Pickett’s TD percentage (1.6% of his passes) ranks second-to-last in the league.

Pickett’s QBR — considered about as an all-encompassing statistic there is — pegs him as the NFL’s 25^th best among the 34 qualifying quarterbacks. Mitch Trubisky, incidentally, is 20^th.

2. Jack of trades

Based on pure cumulative production, inside linebacker Myles Jack has paid off as a free-agent signing. His 68 total tackles and 42 solo tackles each ranked seventh in the NFL after Sunday’s games.

Jack’s 68 overall tackles are the second-most any Steelers player has had over the first seven games of a season. Jack had 10 tackles against the Dolphins, giving him at least that many in four of his seven games with the Steelers.

Pro Football Focus graded Jack as the Steelers’ best run defender in the game (docking him for just one missed tackle) — albeit, in pass coverage Jack allowed the game’s only touchdown (to Raheem Mostert) and was charged with five opponent receptions on six attempts.

3. Three-headed monster

During training camp Jack stood out as the Steelers’ best inside linebacker, and the Steelers were often deploying a sixth defensive back in lieu of using a second inside linebacker during certain packages. That script, though, has flipped entirely. Now, the Steelers are using an extra inside linebacker on the field more than perhaps they ever have.

Led by Jack’s 52 (of a possible 64) defensive snaps played Sunday, each of the Steelers’ top three ILBs appeared in at least 58% of the Steelers’ defensive plays. Devin Bush played 46 snaps (74%) and Robert Spillane 36, meaning there were (at least) 12 snaps in which all three were on the field.

It was the second consecutive game the Steelers often deployed a three-ILB look. Contrast that to Week 1, when there were 33 snaps in which there was only one Steelers inside linebacker on the field.

4. More roles

Jaylen Warren, meanwhile, against the Dolphins was limited to just 23% of the Steelers’ offensive snaps — the second-lowest rate of his rookie season. But a couple weeks after coaches handed the running back the third-down duties, is Warren likewise leaping Najee Harris for another specialized role?

Warren was used for the high-leverage role of being the ballcarrier on a fourth-and-1 at midfield early in the second quarter. He picked up the first down (with 3 yards to spare) — which is better than the Steelers did the other two times they encountered a “possession down” with 1 yard to go: Harris was stuffed for no gain on a third-and-1 early in the fourth quarter, and an illegal shift flag negated a Pickett sneak on third-and-1 with 3 minutes, 17 seconds to play in the fourth.

5. Thirty-four year low

For the third time over their past six games, the Steelers did not have a sack defensively. Over the previous 92 games dating to 2016, they’d only had two games without a sack. The Steelers’ five sacks over the past six games is fewer than they had in the Sept. 11 opener at Cincinnati alone (seven).

The most recent time the Steelers had as few as two sacks over a three-game span was the first three games of the 2016 season, when they had one.

The most recent time the Steelers had as few as five sacks over any six-game span? Late in the 1988 season, when they had five over their final seven games.

And remember, this is a defense that has led the NFL in sacks each of the past five seasons.

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