As many Pittsburgh Steelers fans know, in the early days of the NFL, you won by playing great defense and running the football with a ruthless aggression that others could not match. The will of men forged upon their opponent was contested and played out along the gridiron battlefields of lore. But at some point in the 1960's with the emergence of the AFL, the game saw a sudden change of course when it came to offensive strategy.
Thank god for it. That 3-yards and cloud-of-dust thing would have been mocked on today's social media landscape.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Mitch Trubisky (#10) enjoys a moment during practice in preparation to face the New York Jets this Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022 at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, PA. (Abigail Dean/Pittsburgh Steelers)
As we now know today, passing the ball is what gets you the girls, notoriety and wins in the Shield. Having a quarterback who can chuck the pig deep not only is fun to watch, but keeps fans glued to their TV's, purchasing tickets and streaming NFL RedZone every fall.
Unless you happen to be a fan of the Steelers in 2022.
Coming to the Steelers Jets game on Oct 2? Come tailgate with us! All you can drink and eat. Click here.
Being Passed Up By Others
To say this team lacks spark, let alone the ability to stretch a field with their passing game is an understatement. Over the years, there has been one NFL stat that by measure can be used to determine who's got a shot at winning the Super Bowl and those fixing their draft boards in preparation for a top-5 pick. That stat is Yards Per Pass Attempt or simply YPA.
After just three weeks of NFL play, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where Mitch Trubisky falls on the 2022 NFL list of QB's and YPA. If you take into account the NFL Teams who have started just one QB after three games, Trubisky is nearly dead last among them at 5.5 YPA.
In laymen's terms, this is awful.
Steelers Air Game Grounded After Three Weeks
How awful you ask? Well let me explain, or look for yourself! https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/player-stat/gross-yards-per-passing-attempt
In quarterbacks with a minimum of 500 passing yards, Trubisky ranks 27th out of 30.
In quarterbacks with a minimum of 100 passing attempts, Trubisky ranks dead last at 20 of 20. Kyler Murray is just ahead of him at 5.6 YPA.
In quarterbacks who started the season, Trubisky ranks dead last at 32 of 32.
There is no way to measure how bad this is, other than the smell test. I'm sure if I really took a further deep dive in the analytics of it all, I can come up with another half dozen or so that show Trubisky at the bottom or near so in other areas that calculate how good or poor a quarterback is performing.
Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger and Jerome Bettis celebrate their Super Bowl XL victory over the Seattle Seahawks (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
For comparison of Steelers quarterbacks of the past, both Terry Bradshaw in 1977 and 1978, along with Ben Roethlisberger in 2005, led the NFL in YPA. They happened to win Super Bowls in two of those three seasons. It's not uncommon to see the NFL YPA leader winning a Lombardi that same year including the likes of Joe Montana, Steve Young and Kurt Warner. Others have led the league in YPA and made it to the big game as well including Joe Burrow last season.
YPA isn't just a new analytical number recently dreamed up by stat geeks, it's been used to measure QB success in the league since 1950.
Simply put, the YPA statistic is one that measures a team's success and quite frankly, the chances of going deep into the playoffs. I'd go into the correlation of YPA and YPA differential and how those metrics really tell who's great and who's not, but let's save that for another day.
Keep in mind, I've been one of the few people arguing that you have to keep playing Trubisky for now, as this team has more issues that are contributing to this horrific lack of production. We all know it can't keep going in this direction.
So will this trend continue, Steelers fans? Is the offense going to see radical changes in who runs it both on and off the field soon as the New York Jets come to town? Sound off below in the comments section!
#SteelerNation
