Opponent's QBs Sacked almost as often as Ben

I was surprised to see that the Steelers defense has sack opposing qbs almost as frequently as Ben gets sacked.

Ben - 18 sacks
Opponent - 15 Sacks

Maybe the O-line isn't as bad as we all think.

Maybe the D is getting more pressure than we think.

I feel like these numbers will probably get even better as the season goes along and the weather gets bad. The Patsies game might be one where I think we will be on the wrong side of this particular stat.

 

xEleventybillion

 

Exactly and that Pats game coming up is where we're gonna need the sacks / pressure big time !

 

Any idea what the number of QB pressures is? Against the Rats and Texans, the receivers didn't have time to run their 15-20 yard routes. Ben ended up throwing several at Brown's feet.

 

Not really sure what our defensive success has to do with our offensive line.

I'm really sick of people making excuses for our Oline. It sucks. Plain and simple. It has since Simmons, Faneca, and Marvel Smith were fixtures in the line up. If it weren't for Ben being able to shed so many defenders... I don't even want to think about it really.

 

The defensive success has nothing to do with our offensive line. I never stated that it did. I just thought that these stats pointed to something different than the popular opinion of the Steelers performance. If you read some of these posts the O-line must be made up of a bunch of fat guys off the street. I don't think it is quite so bad. Make no mistake, I do not believe that the O-line is great, but they are a decent NFL caliber line.
My second (separate) point was that the defense is not a bunch of old, washed up players. They are almost the same defense that helped win the AFC championship last year.

 

Guess it's been like this:
4 @ BAL
2 vs SEA
3 @ IND
5 @ HOU
1 vs TEN
3 vs JAX
2 @ ARI

Average, Games 1-4: 3.5 per game
Average,Games 5-7: 2 per game

Hope he finishes under 40. That will mean +/- 2 per game on the remaining 9 games.

 

These really are 2 different things and comparing the number of times your QB gets sacked with the number of sacks your defense makes doesn't really mean anything.

We know our cobbled-together OL has struggled and that BR sometimes holds the ball a little too long trying to make something happen and trying to shed would-be sackers. The number of sacks given up by our O doesn't really raise a red flag for me at this point because we know what this team needs to do to avoid taking so many sacks and the rate is not out of line with what we have seen in the past. I'm surprised by the number of times BR has been sacked by opposing D's that are weaker than our OL/TE's/RB's, though. The sack numbers do seem to be lower when BA calls a decent game. Hmmm... imagine that!!!

The area that does raise a red flag is the number of sacks by our defense. Through 7 games, our D has 17 sacks which puts us a little above middle of the pack. And considering some of the teams we've faced and the bottom-tier QBs who are not mobile or inexperienced, our D should be putting more pressure on the QB's. Woodley has been a beast, but I'm disappointed that Timmons doesn't have a sack yet. Maybe it's because he is in pass coverage more (??) but Farrior has been far more impressive than Timmons this year. Does anyone else feel disappointed that the crappy QB's below didn't getted sacked more by our defense? Good QB's are gonna carve up our DBF if we don't get any pressure on them.

L - Joe Flacco - 1
W - Tavaris Jackson - 5
W - Kerry Collins / Curtis Painter / Jeff George / Chris Chandler / Jim Harbaugh / Kelly Holcomb / Johnny Unitas - 1 --- ARE YOU FREAKIN SERIOUS!!!!!
L - Matt Schaub - 0 --- REALLY?!?!?!
W - Matt Hasselbeck - 3
W - Blaine Gabbert - 5
W - Kevin Kolb - 2

The 5 sack performances against SEA and JAX are great, but take those 2 away and our D has 7 sacks in 5 games. Plus, not really anything to hang your hat on as a defense because the 2 teams that got sacked 5 times each, have crappy OL's and Jackson is just plain bad and Gabbert is too young to know how to step up into the pocket and avoid a pass rush, recognize blitzes, or look for his outlets, dumpoffs, etc. We have played no top-tier QB's and only 2 mid-tier QB's in Schaub and Flacco, the rest were all bottom-tier QB's. Now I'm not trying to blame the Houston loss solely on the fact that the D didn't get any sacks or pressure on Schaub, they didn't need Schaub to connect on a lot of passes because they have Arian Foster and he he lit us up. Baltimoron ran all over us too and we made Flacco look a helluva lot better than he is. Plus, those teams went to the ground when they figured out that Air-Arians was just going to throw bombs all day and our O would not produce much.

The point is, we had better find a way to pressure Brady because he is too accurate and his WR's / TE's are too good for our defensive secondary. We must get to Brady and even if we don't get the sacks, hit him, bat down some balls, knock him down, step on him, make that crybaby feel some pain and hurry him up. If he has all the time he wants in the pocket, I'm afraid the end result will be the same as the past.