Playing time breakdown as the Steelers broke down against the Raiders
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.
Well folks, there isn’t much to say about the game: the Steelers lost.
The composition of what made up that losing effort is outlined below in this week’s snap count analysis.
Offense
| Player | Snaps | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Foster | 60 | 100% |
| Feiler | 60 | 100% |
| Villanueva | 60 | 100% |
| DeCastro | 60 | 100% |
| Pouncey | 60 | 100% |
| Brown | 59 | 98% |
| Smith-Schuster | 52 | 87% |
| Samuels | 48 | 80% |
| Roethlisberger | 41 | 68% |
| McDonald | 38 | 63% |
| James | 31 | 52% |
| Switzer | 28 | 47% |
| Washington | 22 | 37% |
| Dobbs | 19 | 32% |
| Ridley | 8 | 13% |
| Grimble | 6 | 10% |
| Nix | 4 | 7% |
| Heyward-Bey | 2 | 3% |
| Okorafor | 2 | 3% |
The obvious new addition to this week’s list is Joshua Dobbs, who entered the game for Ben Roethlisberger to start the second half. The second-year quarterback played about one-third of the game, and more than doubled his previous season-high snap count of eight, when he finished the game against Carolina.
The Steelers surprisingly didn’t go to their jumbo package often in this game. Actually, they barely went to it at all, with Chuks Okorafor entering the game only twice and Roosevelt Nix receiving four snaps.
Rookie WR James Washington returned to the lineup after going inactive the previous week. Ryan Switzer’s time has diminished from a season-high two weeks ago against the Broncos.
And rookie RB Jaylen Samuels was indeed the bell cow in Pittsburgh’s backfield, replacing the injured James Conner. Stevan Ridley didn’t even see a season-high snap total, despite the thought that the Steelers could use a running back by committee approach on Sunday.
Defense
| Player | Snaps | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Edmunds | 67 | 100% |
| Davis | 67 | 100% |
| Haden | 65 | 97% |
| Sensabaugh | 65 | 97% |
| Dupree | 63 | 94% |
| Watt | 60 | 90% |
| Heyward | 54 | 81% |
| Tuitt | 54 | 81% |
| Fort | 53 | 79% |
| Hilton | 48 | 72% |
| Williams | 36 | 54% |
| Burnett | 33 | 49% |
| Hargrave | 31 | 46% |
| Bostic | 14 | 21% |
| Chickillo | 11 | 16% |
| Alualu | 10 | 15% |
| McCullers | 6 | 9% |
Say what you will about the Steelers defense, but the coaching staff is attempting to do shake things up. Whether or not that’s a good plan can be debated.
Part of the change has been with Jon Bostic. After playing 95 snaps out of a possible 120 against the Jaguars and Broncos, Bostic has been sitting on the bench in the last two weeks, playing only 25 snaps out of 130 against the Chargers and Raiders.
In his place is L.J. Fort, who has ascended to a starter with 105/130 snaps in the last two weeks after playing only 126 snaps in the previous 11 games.
That’s not to say that one or the other of the linebackers has been playing below the line, but it is a message that the Steelers are trying to game plan more with schemes to prevent the pass as Fort is thought of as a passing down linebacker versus Bostic stopping the run.
However, even with the changes in the front seven due to injury and/or scheme, the secondary has been largely unchanged. Morgan Burnett returned after missing a game to play his third-most amount of time this season (and most since Week 10). Coty Sensabaugh has had a lock on the starting job since Week 8, while Joe Haden, Terrell Edmunds, and Sean Davis almost never leave the field.
One more honorable mention… Since filling in during Stephon Tuitt’s injury, Javon Hargrave has earned more playing time even with the former’s return to action. A hybrid DT/DE, Hargrave has 6.5 sacks this season.
Statistics courtesy of the National Football League
