Four wins, Four losses. That’s the only statistic most fans care about. The Steelers aren’t really in it, and they aren’t really out of it. But looking deeper than that there are a few stats we can look at that will really flesh out the identity of the black-and-gold so far.
1-4 against teams with a winning record
That doesn’t sound very good, but the Steelers are also 3-0 against teams with a losing record, so they are winning the games they should. The teams the Steelers have lost to have a combined 25-5 record against other teams. Those teams rank first, second, fifth and sixth in winning percentage in the NFL right now. The Steelers aren’t one of those top teams, but the margin of those losses (after the New England nightmare) shows they aren’t being outclassed by those teams either.
Another thought to hold onto: The AFC East has a total of 2 wins against winning teams, The Jets victory over the Cowboys, and the Patriots victory over Buffalo, a team with 6 wins, but the teams they beat have a combined 9 wins. At this point the standing often reflect schedule strength more than team quality.
Even considering that, the Steelers have such a small margin for error with the number of teams in the wild card hunt and the Ravens playing like they are, I think they are going to need to post wins against at least 2 of the 3 teams with winning records in the back half of the schedule to make the playoffs (Rams, Bills, Ravens). I think 10-6 is needed for a Wild Card this year, too many teams in the hunt with easy schedules. I mean if Buffalo beats all the losing teams on their schedule and loses to every .500 or better team they end up 10-6. Look at KC and Houston’s schedules, I think both end up 10-6 or better. And that’s just the current leaders, there’s a lot of teams right net to the Steelers in the standings that are thinking the same way about their chances.
Actual versus expected points and yards
One of my favorite metrics in football is percentage of expected yards and points per drive. It lets you see what the offense and defense did compared to what the opponent has done in other games.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick explanation:
If you divide the amount of yards and points each team scores by the number of offensive drives they get, you get yards and points per drive. Do that for a season and it is a really good way to judge production. You can apply that to analyze a game by taking the number of drives a team gets in a game and multiplying it by their average yards and points per drive. The result shows what their average performance should net them with that many opportunities. That gives you expected points and yards for that game. If you take the actual yards and points gained and divide it by the expected numbers from the opponents yards and points per drive, you get a percentage of expected production that can tell you a lot about how good an offense or defense really is, and how much of their stats are from the ease of their schedule.
Since week 3 the Steelers defense is allowing 80.5% of expected yards and 81.1% of expected points to their opponents. The 2 weeks before Minkah Fitzpatrick joined the team the Steelers defense allowed 127.4% of yards and 127.5% of points.
Notice how close the numbers are to each other, that’s usually the case in this metric, if a team is giving up yards they also give up points, if they aren’t giving up points they likely aren’t giving up a lot of yards either. When there is a bigger gap between points and yards you know to start looking for an explanation. The defense is playing at a very high level, giving up significantly less yards and points than opposing offenses average.
The offense since week 3, on the other hand, is gaining 80.9% of expected yards, and scoring 112.3% of expected points. A gap of 31.4 percentage points is huge. That gap is a clear sign that you need to look deeper. Well, you don’t, because I already did.
Turnovers and average length of scoring drives
The Pittsburgh Steelers average scoring drive is 44.3 yards, the shortest average in the NFL. On defense the Steelers average drive allowing a score is 51.9 yards, fourth lowest in the NFL.
That is really telling. The Steelers offense has been unable to drive the ball down the field consistently, while they lead the league in scoring drives where the offense gains less than 10 yards with 7 such drives. Add in the two defensive TDs and the Steelers have scored 22.2% of their points without the offense gaining 10 yards.
This team is scoring, often without much input from the offense at all. Which has kept them afloat in this season, while the offenses inability to score TDs when given short fields has been a major problem in close losses.
Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Steelers defense is not giving up long drives for scores very often, but they are giving up short drive scores. Turnovers really are the story here. Since week 3 the Steelers offense has scored on 13 drives started by a turnover, while the Steelers defense has given up 9 scoring drives off turnovers. Both stats lead the league. The average length of those drives? For the offense 31.5 yards and the defense 26.5. The TD to FG ratios could stand to improve for both groups, with the offense putting up 5 TDs and 8 FGs off turnovers, and the defense giving up 6 TDs and 3 FGs.
Playing the long game
What about the normal drives?
The vast majority of NFL drives follow a punt or kickoff, and a high number of those start at the 25 yard line or farther back. If we take every drive following a kickoff or punt and only take the ones that start at the teams 30 yard line or farther back, we can incorporate the majority of normal drives in the NFL.
On those drives the Steelers offense ranks 25th in both yards and scoring percentage, and 28th in TD percentage. In the 20 drives started by a turnover the Steelers have scored 7 TDs. In the 55 drives following a kick or punt and starting inside their own 30 the Steelers offense has 6 TDs.
The defense, on the other hand, has been stellar in those situations, ranking 7th in yards, 6th in scoring percentage and 1st in turnover percentage. Only three defenses in the NFL have a higher turnover percentage than scoring percentage on these drives, the New England Patriots, the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
I think that says it all.