Steelers 4 Downs: Red-zone woes, myriad options at slot/nickel DB, ironman streak ends
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1. Red-faced in the red zone
If nothing else positive can be said about the performance of the Pittsburgh Steelers offense inside the red zone this season, at least it has been consistent.
As in, consistently ranked as the second-worst in the NFL.
In evaluating the 32 teams for their performance in getting inside the opponents’ 20 yard-line, the Steelers rank 31st in touchdown rate (42.9%), 31st in touchdowns scored (12), 31st in number of trips into the red zone (28) and 31st in rate of plays run from that area of the field (9.3%).
But why the struggles? In regards to possessing the ball that far down the field, it’s likely more of an overall failure of the offense. But once the Steelers get close to the goal line, their quarterback play has seemed to falter. Kenny Pickett will miss a second consecutive game Saturday at the Indianapolis Colts, but this season he has completed only 43.8% of his passes inside the red zone.
Couple that with an even-worse 39.1% completion percentage of red-zone passes as a rookie last season, Pickett for his career is completing only 41% of his passes in that area.
2. Slot payouts
The Steelers have deployed myriad options as their inside slot/nickel defensive back this season, with five players having lined up at that spot for at least 56 snaps in 2023 (numbers courtesy PFF): Chandon Sullivan (227), Patrick Peterson (192), Minkah Fitzpatrick (133), Keanu Neal (108) and Damontae Kazee (56). But what is notable is five players have been the Steelers’ most often-used slot defender during a given game, including Darius Rush for the Nov. 2 win against the Tennessee Titans. That number almost rose to six during last week’s loss to New England when Trenton Thompson lined up 17 times across from a Patriots slot receiver, just one fewer than Peterson.
In what is probably a function of him often moving to the slot in passing situations, Peterson leads the Steelers in coverage snaps while lined up there with 127, 16 more than Sullivan.
3. Go forth on fourth down
The Steelers were quite the outlier on a graph put together by Open Source Football shared online this week that plotted NFL teams’ propensity for going for it on fourth downs. And while the Steelers were close to (just below) league average in regards to rate of going for it in situations when the calculated math dictates that a team absolutely should, what was eyebrow-raising was how it showed how often the Steelers go for it on fourth downs that the analytics deem a “toss-up.”
Not once this season have the Steelers gone for it on fourth down in such situations.
For what the basic raw numbers are worth, the Steelers are 5 for 13 on fourth downs this season — 4 for 6 on fourth-and-1 plays and 1 for 7 when more than a yard is needed.
4. New ironman
The absence of James Pierre from last week’s game was not all that noteworthy, but it did represent the end of what had been the Steelers’ active “ironman” streak.
Pierre had appeared in 62 consecutive Steelers games before a shoulder injury kept him out of the loss to the Patriots. That represented every game the team had played since signing Pierre as an undrafted rookie cornerback in 2020.
The Steelers new “ironman” is special-teams captain Miles Killebrew, who has played in each of the 47 regular-season games on the schedule since he joined the Steelers as a free agent in 2021. Dating to his time with the Detroit Lions, Killebrew has a streak of 57 consecutive games played.
The longest active games played streak by a Steelers player on offense or defense is outside linebacker Alex Highsmith at 44 games.
Since Pierre made the team in 2020, he has appeared in more Steelers games than any other player. Next is Diontae Johnson with 57 games played, then Minkah Fitzpatrick and Cameron Heyward with 56 each.
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