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	81	100%
Feiler	81	100%
Villanueva	81	100%
DeCastro	81	100%
Brown	81	100%
Pouncey	81	100%
Roethlisberger	80	99%
Smith-Schuster	77	95%
Washington	70	86%
Conner	68	84%
McDonald	51	63%
James	35	43%
Switzer	13	16%
Samuels	6	7%
Heyward-Bey	4	5%
Dobbs	1	1%

The surprise of the day was certainly Joshua Dobbs’ brief appearance for a single snap, but I’m willing to bet Steelers Nation didn’t pick out another big stat: that the offense’s jumbo package, with Roosevelt Nix and Chuks Okorafor, never saw the field.

That’s fairly impressive considering James Conner rushing for over 100 yards and a 4.5 yards-per-carry average.

An even more eye-popping stat to add to that: the Steelers offense logged 81 plays. That’s one less than they played with overtime against Cleveland in Week 1.

James Washington returned after being a healthy scratch last week and played all but 11 snaps. Four of those eleven were given early to Darrius Heyward-Bey, who helped establish the run game.

Ryan Switzer continues to see his usual workload out of the slot, with Jesse James losing ground to Vance McDonald, with no other tight end seeing playing time on Sunday.

Jaylen Samuels also made a few brief appearances as the Steelers attempt to integrate the fifth-round versatile back into their offense.

Defense

Player	Snaps	Pct
Edmunds	61	100%
Davis	61	100%
Sensabaugh	60	98%
Haden	60	98%
Hilton	53	87%
Dupree	51	84%
Tuitt	48	79%
Heyward	48	79%
Watt	46	75%
Bostic	34	56%
Williams	34	56%
Fort	27	44%
Burnett	27	44%
Chickillo	24	39%
Hargrave	18	30%
Alualu	15	25%
McCullers	3	5%

Buh-bye cornerback rotation.

Coty Sensabaugh played all but a single snap, as he firmly holds the starting cornerback position opposite Joe Haden. Sean Davis and Terrell Edmunds continue to be iron men at the safety positions as well.

The front seven, however, is a “right tool for the job” rotation which saw L.J. Fort play a season-high 44% of the game. Fort has now logged 48 of a possible 125 snaps over the last two games (both wins).

Vince Williams saw his playing time dip to a season-low (while healthy) dropping down from his previous low a week earlier (66%) to 56% this week. That’s attributed to Fort’s rise in dime and “quarter” packages, along with a healthy Morgan Burnett receiving ample playing time too.

The shift in the middle of the field hasn’t affected Jon Bostic, who continues to see about the same amount of snaps as he has all season. Tyler Matakevich, however, is the odd man out: he, along with former starting CB Artie Burns, have not played on the defensive side of the ball for two straight games.

Anthony Chickillo is another name to note, as he’s seen his playing time rise over the last two weeks too. Dan McCullers saw his lowest timeshare of the season (5% or 3 snaps) while Tyson Alualu wasn’t utilized as frequently either.

The forgotten man on the Steelers defense is now L.T. Walton, a former spot starter who has only played in one game all season. (Walton was inactive on Sunday.)

One more name to add to this report is Cameron Sutton, who didn’t play a single defensive snap for the first time this season.

 

Statistics courtesy of the National Football League