Steelers playing time shares from Sunday Night’s loss to the Ravens
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.
Offense
| Player | Snaps | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Foster | 63 | 100% |
| Gilbert | 63 | 100% |
| DeCastro | 63 | 100% |
| Villanueva | 63 | 100% |
| Roethlisberger | 63 | 100% |
| Pouncey | 63 | 100% |
| Brown | 60 | 95% |
| Smith-Schuster | 60 | 95% |
| Conner | 50 | 79% |
| Washington | 47 | 75% |
| McDonald | 39 | 62% |
| James | 28 | 44% |
| Switzer | 21 | 33% |
| Heyward-Bey | 5 | 8% |
| Grimble | 3 | 5% |
| Nix | 1 | 2% |
| Okorafor | 1 | 2% |
With the Steelers seemingly abandoning the running game, it’s no surprise that Rosy Nix and Chuks Okorafor didn’t see the field but for a single snap.
The big winner on Sunday, however, was Ryan Switzer, who played a season-high 21 snaps. In fact, all of the wide receivers saw a significant bump in playing time as the Steelers ran nearly a 5-to-1 pass-to-rush ratio of offensive play calls.
That balance also saw TE Vance McDonald get his largest share of playing time this season. Now healthy, McDonald appeared on the field for over half of the game for the first time in 2018, while his counterpart Jesse James saw his numbers dip below half of the game for the first time as well.
Antonio Brown rarely leaves the field, but that’s starting to become a trend for JuJu Smith-Schuster too. The second-year receiver played 90% or more of the offensive reps for the second time in four games.
Defense
| Player | Snaps | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Edmunds | 77 | 100% |
| Davis | 77 | 100% |
| Haden | 77 | 100% |
| Watt | 71 | 92% |
| Dupree | 67 | 87% |
| Williams | 66 | 86% |
| Bostic | 59 | 77% |
| Heyward | 57 | 74% |
| Tuitt | 57 | 74% |
| Sutton | 55 | 71% |
| Burns | 53 | 69% |
| Sensabaugh | 31 | 40% |
| Hargrave | 28 | 36% |
| Alualu | 25 | 32% |
| Chickillo | 16 | 21% |
| Berhe | 12 | 16% |
| Fort | 11 | 14% |
| McCullers | 9 | 12% |
On the field for 77 total plays, the Steelers defense had to do some moving and shaking to substitute for tired players and injuries. Last week’s cornerback rotation between Artie Burns and Coty Sensabaugh became null and void when Morgan Burnett’s replacement, Nat Berhe, went down in the second half. (Unfortunately, his season may be over after being placed on IR Tuesday morning.) Sensabaugh filled in the dimebacker role after Berhe was injured and played a substantial number of minutes along with Burns.
Cam Sutton, playing in place of the injured Mike Hilton, also had a season-high of playing time.
Dan McCullers continues to get on the field as well: way more than last season. In fact, any game he gets a snap is more than he played on the defense in 2017.
Rookie Terrell Edmunds is being relied upon heavily. The first round draft pick played the entire game for a second-straight week. Jon Bostic is also staying on the field a lot longer than he did through the first two weeks. For better or worse the Steelers inside linebackers have been putting in a lot of time, which I believe is due to injuries at the safety position (mainly Morgan Burnett, who missed his second straight game).
Vince Williams played all but one defensive snap through the first three weeks but left the field with his helmet off near the end of Sunday night. This allowed L.J. Fort to receive his snaps this season, playing a total of 11 plays.
Statistics courtesy of the National Football League
