Steelers find success this week by splitting time on defense

Each week we’ll take a look at the composition of the Steelers wins and losses (and ties too) by examining the team’s snap counts on offense and defense. Here’s a look at the makeup of last week’s game.

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Offense

Player Snaps Pct
Foster 66 100%
Finney 66 100%
Feiler 66 100%
Villanueva 66 100%
Roethlisberger 66 100%
Pouncey 66 100%
Brown 62 94%
Conner 56 85%
Smith-Schuster 55 83%
Washington 40 61%
James 33 50%
McDonald 32 48%
Grimble 16 24%
Nix 11 17%
Okorafor 9 14%
Switzer 7 11%
Ridley 5 8%
Heyward-Bey 4 6%

The return of Vance McDonald became a highlight video in the tight end’s second week of NFL action after missing Week 1’s game against the Browns. As the trend continues, he split time with Jesse James.

Few other surprises were in store Monday night. The heavy package players such as swing tackle Chuks Okorafor and Rosy Nix saw limited time. James Washington saw his snaps dip but that’s also the result of the Steelers playing only 66 total snaps on offense versus 84 and 82 over the last two games.

Matt Feiler saw his first game of the season in place of RT Marcus Gilbert. WR Ryan Switzer continues to be utilized in subpackages as well. Darrius Heyward-Bey also finds himself on the field for his ability to block.

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Defense

Player Snaps Pct
Edmunds 74 100%
Haden 74 100%
Williams 74 100%
Davis 73 99%
Watt 66 89%
Dupree 58 78%
Bostic 54 73%
Heyward 54 73%
Tuitt 52 70%
Sensabaugh 49 66%
Hilton 35 47%
Alualu 28 38%
Burns 25 34%
Chickillo 24 32%
Hargrave 24 32%
Sutton 20 27%
Berhe 20 27%
McCullers 9 12%

The defensive side of the ball was far more interesting than the offense on Monday night. The defensive line split time with Tyson Alualu back in the lineup. Artie Burns lost his starting job and split 1/3 of the reps at the cornerback position opposite Joe Haden with Coty Sensabaugh.

Haden, along with rookie Terrell Edmunds and Vince Williams, played the entire game. Sean Davis left the field for a single snap.

The outside linebackers also rotated. TJ Watt saw the lion’s share of reps but Anthony Chickillo played a season-high 24 snaps, doubling the 20 combined snaps he played in weeks one and two.

Nat Berhe also saw his first playing time of the 2018 season, subbing for the injured Morgan Burnett, who was inactive. Cameron Sutton also joined the defense with Mike Hilton getting banged up in the second half.

The result was a mix and match of pieces on defense that appeared to keep specific players fresh. With a “W” in the win column, its possible we see similar experiments with rotating players in the coming weeks.

 

Statistics courtesy of the National Football League


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