1. Going long

The advanced analytics community has been less than kind in evaluating the season of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, who is the starting quarterback for a 10-0 team. Often, the criticisms of Roethlisberger revolve around his downfield passing.

First, the good: Only four NFL quarterbacks this season have more touchdown passes on balls thrown 20 or more yards past the line of scrimmage than Roethlisberger’s seven. Only three passers have more deep attempts than Big Ben’s 52.

But, per the numbers compiled by Pro Football Focus, the positive spin on Roethlisberger’s deep throws ends there. He’s completed only 15 of the 52 (28.8%), but even accounting for two Chase Claypool drops, his adjusted completion percentage on deep passes (32.7%) is the third-worst among the 23 quarterbacks who have attempted at least 30 downfield passes. Hurt by four interceptions in such 20-plus yard passes (only Carson Wentz has more), Roethlisberger’s passer rating (73.2) is sixth-worst.

Per Sports Info Solutions, when Roethlisberger has thrown deep (20 or more yards downfield), the Steelers’ “Expected Points Added” (an all-encompassing metric to measure all plays) is actually negative (minus-0.12). For only one other quarterback in the league is that true.

2. Dis-play action

Sharp Football notes that part of Roethlisberger’s issues with the deep ball are the lack of a play-action threat. The Steelers use play-action fakes less than any team in the NFL — by far.

But, looking at the data collected by Pro Football Focus about play-action passing, perhaps there is a good reason why the Steelers shy away from it. Roethlisberger’s completion percentage during play action is more than 10 points worse in play-action (57.9%) than otherwise (68.1%). Only Drew Brees has a worse discrepancy via play-action, and the majority of NFL QBs are better when using play-action.

That’s more pronounced when measuring by yards per attempt — Roethlisberger is at 5.6 with play action and 6.8 without. Of 39 qualifying quarterbacks, he is one of only five who are worse with play action than without; his minus-1.2 YPA with play action is second-worst to only Derek Carr.

Despite that all five interceptions he’s thrown have come when not using play-action, Roethlisberger’s passer rating is significantly better without play-action (103.4 vs. 82.6 with it).

3. Unlikely way to ‘go’

Per Next Gen Stats, Claypool’s 31-yard touchdown against the Jacksonville Jaguars last week was his third on a “go” route this season. Only one receiver in the NFL has more.

It also was the 10th-most unlikely completion in the league during Week 11, judging by the league’s in-house calculation based on factors such as in-air distance of the pass, receiver separation from his closest defender and his distance from sideline.

That was the third time in 10 games that Claypool recorded a catch that was deemed one of the most improbable of a league week this season. His sideline toe-tap in the opener against the New York Giants is the sixth-most improbable of any NFL catch this season (13.8%).

His 84-yard touchdown against the Denver Broncos was deemed the fourth-most improbable reception of Week 2 (18.3%), and a 36-yard catch Oct. 18 along the sidelines against the Cleveland Browns had a 26.7% catch probability.

4. On targets

Diontae Johnson has been thrown the ball 37 times over the Steelers’ past three games. No player in the NFL was targeted more during Weeks 9-11. Johnson caught 24 of those balls for 304 yards and a touchdown. Johnson had a catch of at least 23 yards in each of those games and seven catches of at least 17 yards.

Before these past three games, Johnson had only two catches of 20-plus yards this season. A big part of that is that Johnson rarely runs deep routes. According to PFF, 15.2% of passes thrown to Johnson are 20 or more yards downfield, the third-lowest rate among the 39 players who have had at least 11 deep passes thrown their way.

Looking at Next Gen Stats data, during the past three games, only 11 of Johnson’s 37 targets were even 10 yards downfield. He caught seven. During last week’s win at Jacksonville, Johnson caught all three targets his way of 20-plus yards.

Despite the lack of deep balls, Johnson still ranks among the NFL’s top 25 in receiving yards per game thanks in large part to being 14th among wide receivers in average yards after the catch (5.9).

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