Steelers 4 Downs: Numbers suggest Kenny Pickett has been good against pressure, blitz
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1. Good under pressure
Dealing with pressure in general and designed blitzes in particular isn’t the only thing that can set a young quarterbacks apart. But it could foretell success in the NFL. And through six quarters as a pro, Kenny Pickett has done well when facing a pass rush.
Pro Football Focus’ subjective grades show Pickett has been the second-best quarterback in the league against the blitz. PFF’s data breaks down passers when “kept clean” and “under pressure.” Among the 35 NFL quarterbacks who have dropped back and faced pressure at least 18 times, Pickett has the third-best adjusted completion percentage when under pressure at 75%. (Adjusted completion percentage gives QBs credit for drops, which helps Pickett in that case considering no quarterback in the league has had receivers drop more passes that were delivered under pressure than Pickett, who has played 11/2 games).
PFF’s grades for passers under pressure put Pickett in elite company. He is third to Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, and he grades second to Mahomes in passing.
2. No pressure
After leading the NFL in sacks each of the past five seasons, the Steelers aren’t getting much pressure on opposing quarterbacks. That can be blamed on the absence of reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt, but it won’t explain the entirety of the failure.
Take the interior linemen, for example. ESPN calculates “pass rush win rate” for players. It ranks Cameron Heyward and Larry Ogunjobi below league average among defensive linemen in that metric. On face value, that is disappointing, considering those players combine for almost 12% of the Steelers’ salary cap with hits of $17.4 million and $8 million (first and third most on the team), respectively.
But what might be more alarming as it relates to the future is Heyward and Ogunjobi, according to ESPN, are double-teamed at a rate less than league average. That fact would seem to disprove the popular notion that justifies Heyward’s lack of sack production by attributing it to Watt not being there to siphon away blockers.
3. Deep man
The average throw to George Pickens this season is 15.3 air yards down the field, according to Next Gen Stats. That ranks him as the seventh deepest-targeted player in the league.
The Steelers are throwing long to Pickens to a degree they haven’t done with anyone in awhile. Over the previous five seasons, the only wide receiver or tight end who was, on average, targeted farther down the field than Pickens has been this season was James Washington in 2019. Steelers quarterbacks that season targeted Washington with 15.6 average air yards.
4. No, no Najee
Najee Harris has taken a statistical beating this season both in the traditional numbers and in many more advanced analytics.
Next Gen Stats piled on more in its weekly league-wide update of tidbits from the prior weekend’s games. It noted Harris had the lowest “efficiency score” of any running back in the NFL during Week 5: Harris ran 7.85 yards for every 1 yard gained. He finished with the worst “rush yards over expected” (minus-2.21) in the league last week, too, and is last in the league for the season as well (minus-1.06).
All that, according to Next Gen Stats, without facing a single “eight-man box” in the loss against the Bills.
PFF’s grades peg Harris as 29th among 31 qualifying NFL running backs. In footballoutsiders.com’s most all-encompassing stat, Harris rates 36th among 39 backs.