With the Steelers poised to make a claim to the #1 seed in the conference tomorrow, everyone is focusing on the same question: Is our offense consistent enough to take us the distance?
In short: yes, it is.
Here is a statistical rundown of why the Steelers offense is not as bad as people are making it out to be.
Steelers Stats:
Yards/Game: 303.4 (24th)
Points/Game: 21.6 (21st)
But here are the big stats:
Opponent’s Yards Against/Game: 309.8 (4th)
Opponent’s Points Against/Game: 20.6 (6th)
The gauntlet of defenses we have faced are allowing the 4th fewest average yards per game and 6th fewest average points per game.
In light of these numbers, our offense is averaging about a 98% success rate in Yards per Game (meaning, we usually get about 98% of the average yards per game that defense allows). On the points side, the news is a little better. We are averaging 104% (outscoring the average our opponent’s defenses allow).
So what does all this mean? That our offense is, in a word, average. Essentially, we play to the level of our opponents defense. If their defense is bad, our offense flourishes. If their defense is good, our offense struggles.
For the record, Tennessee is averaging 281 yards against per game, and 14.1 points against per game. Don’t expect an offensive explosion tomorrow.
Additionally, considering that after tomorrow, we will have faced every team in the Top 7 in total defense, except ourselves. These are, Baltimore (twice), Philadelphia, Tennessee, Washington, New York (Giants), and Dallas. We have also faced 3 other teams ranking in the top half of the league in total defense (Indy, New England, Jacksonville). This makes for 10 games out of 15 (counting tomorrow’s game) that will be played against a defense in the top half of the league.
Is it cause for concern that our offense isn’t dominating these defenses? Nope. And I’ve got 11 wins and no double-digit losses to back me up.
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