Tim Benz: Chase Claypool wants more 'go balls' in Steelers offense — stats suggest he may be right

After another putrid result from the Pittsburgh Steelers offense Sunday night, Chase Claypool had a direct suggestion to help matters. Following the team’s 16-10 loss in Miami, the third-year receiver said the offense needs a few more deep shots.

“I just think we need more go balls. Not enough go balls,” Claypool said via ESPN.com. “We’ve got playmakers. I haven’t had a go ball all year. George needs more, (Diontae Johnson) needs more. I’m not saying that’s on the play-calling, I’m just saying we need to try to find a way to scheme it up.”

So, if it’s “not on the play-calling,” but there is need to “scheme it up,” then it’s on play design. Either way, it’s on the offensive coordinator — even if Claypool didn’t mention Matt Canada by name.

I mean, it’s his job — and the jobs of the other offensive coaches — to draw up and call the plays, right?

Either way, some of the statistics suggest Claypool has a point. Consider these numbers about the Steelers passing game mined by TribLIVE’s Chris Adamski.

• Among the 34 NFL qualified quarterbacks, Kenny Pickett is last in passer rating (66.7) and yards per completion (8.9).

• Pickett is also last in Pro-football-reference.com metric adjusted yards per attempt (3.9). That stat essentially penalizes quarterbacks for interceptions more than pure yards per attempt, which treats an incompletion and interception equally.

• Pickett’s TD percentage (1.6% of his passes) ranks second-to-last in the league.

Steelers drives with Kenny Pickett at QB have resulted in:

8 scoring drives
7 INTs
14 punts
11 three and outs

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) October 24, 2022

Here’s some more data that lends credence to Claypool’s observations.

• As a team, the Steelers are 31st in passing yards per attempt (6.1), 29th in yards per completion (8.9) and 24th in passing yards per game (210.7).

• In terms of depth of target, Pickett is 22nd when it comes to average air yards per pass attempt (7.1), 25th in average air yards per completion (5.2) and 22nd in completed air yards per pass attempt (3.6).

• Pickett only attempted five passes of 20 or more air yards Sunday night.

So Claypool may be onto something. But, to his point about play-calling versus scheme, it’s not just about when the deep shots are called, it’s how they are designed.

One frequent, if overly simplified, point of complaint from Steelers fans in the Canada era has been that the Steelers only seem to have two kinds of passes: dump downs short of the sticks and floated, one-read, 50-50 jump balls down the sideline.

The latter may boost the air-yards average, but are they much more than hope shots of drawing a pass interference flag or trying to catch the opposing defense napping or flat footed? Maybe designing plays centered around freeing up a player for a deep shot besides just trying to win a foot race and a jump ball is the way to go.

In the name of being fair with criticism, winning foot races and jump balls are aspects of Claypool’s game that the Steelers were hoping would manifest given his size and speed. That’s happened infrequently during his three years in the NFL, though.

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That said, according to an ESPN.com study earlier this month, Claypool surprisingly sat atop NextGen rankings when it came to “go route efficiency.” According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, “One target can make a big difference in terms of yards per go route run, even over a year-plus sample. It’s just a matter of whether it was caught. Chase Claypool of the Steelers has 105 receiving yards off go routes since the start of 2021 (47 routes).”

That would fly in the face of Claypool’s assessment that he “hasn’t had a go ball all season.” Although, as Steelers Depot pointed out, 52 of those yards came on one catch against the Raiders last year and 38 came on a reception against the Vikings.

7/11 ????????@ChaseClaypool | #HereWeGo pic.twitter.com/0H6H0ruRgP

— NFL Canada (@NFLCanada) September 19, 2021

For their purposes, ESPN had a definition of “go route” as, “A fly route or 9 route, the go is a deep throw to a receiver on a straight, vertical release.”

Regardless of nomenclature, the Steelers need to hit more big plays. In Miami, Pickett had two first-half scoring drives that totaled 25 plays and over 13 minutes of possession time, chewing up 134 yards.

That’s great. But that approach is asking a limited offense, with a rookie quarterback and a shaky offensive line, to do a lot right by execute a ton of plays in a row.

To that end, look at how the Steelers’ last two fourth-quarter drives went. While down 16-10, one of them lasted 12 plays and gobbled up 52 yards. The next one lasted 10 plays and ate up 62 yards.

Wonderful. Those were a lot of successful snaps. Until they weren’t.

Until the Steelers committed 15 yards of penalties on two straight snaps, followed by Pickett throwing his second interception of the night with 3:06 left. He threw his third pick of the evening at the goal line with 25 seconds left in the game on the 10th play of the next series.

It’d be nice if the Steelers drew up a few more potential chunk plays so that Pickett and company didn’t have to be so right, so often. And it’d be nice if the offense executed them better when those plays were sent in from Canada.

“I feel like I’ve heard it every week: How close are we?” Claypool said. “I think it’s too late in the season to be close to anything. If we’re close, we have to get there next week.”

Yeah. Against the unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles. With the fourth-best scoring defense and fourth-best total defense in the NFL.

Maybe we’ll ask again the next week after the bye instead.