Composition of the Steelers team victory over the Bengals
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
| Foster | 73 | 100% |
|---|---|---|
| Villanueva | 73 | 100% |
| Gilbert | 73 | 100% |
| DeCastro | 73 | 100% |
| Pouncey | 73 | 100% |
| Roethlisberger | 73 | 100% |
| Conner | 66 | 90% |
| Brown | 63 | 86% |
| McDonald | 51 | 70% |
| James | 51 | 70% |
| Smith-Schuster | 50 | 68% |
| Grimble | 21 | 29% |
| Nix | 17 | 23% |
| Washington | 16 | 22% |
| Hunter | 14 | 19% |
| Okorafor | 8 | 11% |
| Ridley | 6 | 8% |
| Switzer | 2 | 3% |
Compared with a week earlier, and going back to the Ravens loss at home, there is one glaring change to how the Steelers offense has operated: they have limited Ryan Switzer’s touches.
After having 21 reps in Week 4, Switzer has seen his playing time drop to 4 and 2 snaps in the last two games.
His time presumably went to a heavy package philosophy against the Bengals where Xavier Grimble and Roosevelt Nix both played their largest shares of the season. James Washington saw his time decrease due to this change as well, with his second-lowest snap count of the year.
James Conner played a second-highest 90% of snaps for his 2018 campaign with the only other big addition of note being Justin Hunter, who had 14 snaps to Washington’s 16, active in place of the injured Darrius Heyward-Bey.
Defense
| Player | Snaps | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Edmunds | 61 | 100% |
| Williams | 59 | 97% |
| Haden | 58 | 95% |
| Davis | 57 | 93% |
| Dupree | 56 | 92% |
| Watt | 51 | 84% |
| Heyward | 49 | 80% |
| Tuitt | 48 | 79% |
| Hilton | 47 | 77% |
| Sensabaugh | 35 | 57% |
| Bostic | 33 | 54% |
| Burns | 29 | 48% |
| Sutton | 28 | 46% |
| Hargrave | 21 | 34% |
| Chickillo | 15 | 25% |
| Alualu | 13 | 21% |
| McCullers | 5 | 8% |
| Dangerfield | 4 | 7% |
| Matakevich | 2 | 3% |
Artie Burns saw his playing time drop to his second-lowest total of the season. Coty Sensabaugh played a touch more, essentially one more drive than Burns.
Vince Williams returned and only came off of the field twice. Terrell Edmunds was the only defender to play the entire game with Joe Haden and Sean Davis both getting small dings which saw them leave for just a few snaps.
Javon Hargrave received his second-highest snap count of the season as well, with Jordan Dangerfield entering a game for the first time this year.
Statistics courtesy of the National Football League
