Steelers Four Downs: Yards after catch fueling passing game
1. YAC daddies
The Pittsburgh Steelers rank 18th in the NFL in passing yards per game. That’s not an indictment of the team’s passing game. It is more a function of having a lead so often, thus muting the incentive to throw too much.
But despite that mediocre total, three Steelers wide receivers rank among the NFL leaders in yards after the catch. According to Pro Football Focus, JuJu Smith-Schuster is ninth with 258 yards after his catches, Diontae Johnson is 11th with 248 yards after the catch and Chase Claypool 15th with 224.
Those three also rank among the top 36 on a per-catch basis (minimum 50 targets): Johnson tied for second at 6.7, Claypool sixth at 6.4 and Smith-Schuster 13th at 4.8.
Love ? https://t.co/a24LibAVT4
— Diontae Johnson (@Juiceup__3) November 19, 2020
2. Nine-and-oh-my
Over the first 50 NFL seasons after its merger with the AFL, only 20 teams started 9-0. With their win last week, the Steelers became the 21st to do so during the 51st post-merger season. They are the first team to start 9-0 since 2015.
All 20 of the previous teams to win their first nine regular-season games qualified for the playoffs, but only 12 made it to the Super Bowl. Three of the past four fell short of the Super Bowl and combined to win just one playoff game (the 2015 New England Patriots won in the divisional round, but the 2013 Kansas City Chiefs and 2011 Green Bay Packers lost their postseason opener). The most recent team that sat at 9-0 and won the Super Bowl was the 2009 New Orleans Saints. In that game, they beat another team that was 9-0 that season: the Indianapolis Colts.
Only 35% (seven) of the 20 previous teams to start 9-0 ended up winning the Super Bowl that season.
JuJu Smith-Schuster on why the red-zone offense is clicking with Ben Roethlisberger orchestrating it pic.twitter.com/RzlmMAFqWn
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) November 18, 2020
3. The 3rd (down) degree
Smith-Schuster’s yards per catch rate is down, as are his overall catches and yards from his career year in 2018. But the case can be made Smith-Schuster is as clutch as ever.
Smith-Schuster is on track for a career high in touchdown catches: he has five through nine games. He also is among the NFL’s best at successful third-down receptions, those defined as ones that gain a first down.
Smith-Schuster has 16 third-down catches that attained a first down, third-most in the NFL behind the Los Angeles Chargers’ Keenan Allen and the Green Bay Packers’ Davante Adams. Only two other wide receivers have more than 12 such catches.
Claypool is tied for ninth in the NFL with 11 first-down receptions on third down.
Go ? & get it‼️@_BigBen7 | @ChaseClaypool pic.twitter.com/TlXPrTM164
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) November 18, 2020
4. Deep Ben
There has been talk about Ben Roethlisberger’s inability or lack of desire or intention to throw the ball downfield this season. There is truth behind that. Among seasonlong starting quarterbacks (according to Next Gen Stats), only the Carolina Panthers’ Teddy Bridgewater has a lower average completed air yards (measured by where the ball is caught, not how any yards the receiver ultimately gains).
But Roethlisberger flipped that script during last week’s win against the Cincinnati Bengals. His 9.7 average intended air yards was third-most of any quarterback during Week 10. Roethlisberger completed nine passes of at least 10 yards downfield last week, the most of any game this season.
According to PFF, Roethlisberger led the NFL in touchdowns on passes of 20 or more yards downfield during two of the past three full seasons he played (2016 and ’18).
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Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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