Four Downs: A year after spate of drops, Diontae Johnson sure-handed for Steelers

1. No more drops

Drops plagued Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson so much last season he was benched briefly because of it. This season, there have been no such issues.

Among the 38 NFL wide receivers who have been thrown to the most according to Pro Football Focus, Johnson has the third-best drop percentage at 1.7%. Johnson has been thrown to 93 times and has 59 catches and one drop. Adding in qualifying NFL tight ends, only four players in the league have a better drop percentage.

Contrast that to last season, when only two players across the league had a worse drop percentage (13.7%, with a league-most 14 drops).

This season, among players who have been targeted more than 25 times, Johnson has the best drop percentage on the Steelers. He also has the second-best “contested catch” rate behind only tight end Pat Freiermuth. PFF reports Johnson has caught half of the 14 balls thrown his way in which he had to beat out a defender for the catch.

Big Ben with the float pass to Diontae Johnson for the TD ????

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/ArdOfwPVzF

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 22, 2021

2. Ben in Ohio

Sunday might be the final game Ben Roethlisberger plays in his native state. Safe to say the Findlay, Ohio, native who played at Miami (Ohio) will miss his trips back to the Buckeye State.

Including the playoffs, Roethlisberger is 26-5-1 in games played in Ohio. He’s 12-2-1 in Cleveland and 14-3 in Cincinnati. Big Ben backed the Steelers to a victory at Cleveland’s FirstEnergy Stadium last month, and Sunday is perhaps the final time the 39-year-old will play in the Cincinnati Bengals’ Paul Brown Stadium.

Roethlisberger enters Sunday with 24 career wins (regardless of venue) against the Bengals and Browns, joining Tom Brady as one of two NFL quarterbacks to have that many victories against two teams in a career.

PUNT BLOCK ????

????: @SNFonNBC pic.twitter.com/cUJLnaWXK2

— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) November 22, 2021

3. How special

Footballoutsiders.com uses a deep statistical formula to evaluate NFL teams and players that it calls “DVOA” (short for “defense-adjusted value over average”). Like any other metric, it can be taken with a grain of salt but still can be instructive about players or teams that are doing well or poorly.

In the wake of the Steelers’ second blocked punt of the season, last week was a good time to check out the Steelers’ DVOA for special teams. It’s at league-average (15th among 32 teams), but breaking it down by unit might be of interest.

Thanks primarily to Chris Boswell, the Steelers’ placekicking has added the most “expected points” of any other peer unit the NFL this season (10.0). The Steelers also rank relatively highly (ninth in the NFL) in kickoff returns. But that’s where the positives end. Per footballoutsiders.com, the Steelers add negative “expected points” in kickoff coverage (fifth-worst in the NFL), punt coverage (fifth-worst) and punt return (seventh-worst).

#Steelers Four Downs by @C_AdamskiTrib: More motion on offense, fast pressure on defense, lots of wins at home https://t.co/fe0FXgcjFX

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) September 20, 2020

4. Do the loco-motion

The Steelers are utilizing more motion at the snap on offense this season, the first under coordinator Matt Canada. According to ESPN, only seven teams have motion at the time of snap more often than the Steelers’ 16.0% such deployment. The Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs are the only AFC teams that have more often deployed motion at the snap.

The numbers for usage of motion at any point during a play leading up to the snap, though, differ. The Steelers are at 40.5%, which ranks 20th in the NFL.

Studies suggest that motion at the snap is advantageous for an offense, with the best theory as to why being that any split-second in which a defense is distracted or leaning the “wrong” way provides an edge to the offense.

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