Looking at the Steelers recent struggles in the red zone. How do the Patriots take advantage?

In the red zone, defenders don’t fear getting beaten deep because there’s no field behind them. To counter this, Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley spreads multiple wideouts across the line to give Roethlisberger many short-range options — but against the Chiefs that put pressure on the Steelers pass-catchers to win their one-on-one matchups, and as Matt Chatam explains in this video, their receivers struggled to get open in these short-field situations



Here are some interesting tidbits:

• Despite finishing 7th in yards gained, the Steelers ranked 10th in points scored. In the regular season, the Steelers possessed the football an average of 30 minutes, 22 seconds but scored only 24.9 points per game. Roethlisberger opened up the year completing 65.6% of his passes over the first nine weeks with an 11:0 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His red zone passer rating of 112.1 ranked 6th of all quarterbacks with 10+ red zone attempts as he spread the ball to Brown (6 receptions, 3 touchdowns) and TE Jesse James (5 receptions, 3 touchdowns). Since Pittsburgh’s 10th game, Roethlisberger has completed just 34.4% of his red zone passes, with a 2:3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His passer rating of 25.0 is the worst of any quarterback in the entire league, and this includes a pair of games against the Cleveland Browns.

• During home games, the Steelers scored TDs in the redzone 56.4 percent of the time. But that dropped to 37 percent when playing on the road. Despite their playoff success is the Steelers haven't scored a touchdown since the third quarter of the wild-card game against the Miami Dolphins on Jan. 8. And that was at the end of a 25-yard scoring drive set up by Ryan Shazier's interception

• Against the Chiefs last week in Kansas City, Pittsburgh's red zone offense was virtually nonexistent. Roethlisberger and the Steelers’ four other offensive Pro Bowlers crossed the Chiefs’ 30-yard line five times and were denied on every one of those drives. Not only did they fail to make big plays in the red zone, they nearly failed to make any plays at all: From inside the Chiefs’ 30, Roethlisberger completed six of 15 passes for just nine yards, converted zero first downs through the air, committed his only turnover and surrendered his only sack.

FiveThirtyEight breaks this down in more detail and concludes that the Patriots have a decisive edge in defending the red zone.

Soul_Survivor88 said:

In the red zone, defenders don’t fear getting beaten deep because there’s no field behind them. To counter this, Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley spreads multiple wideouts across the line to give Roethlisberger many short-range options — but against the Chiefs that put pressure on the Steelers pass-catchers to win their one-on-one matchups, and as Matt Chatam explains in this video, their receivers struggled to get open in these short-field situations



Here are some interesting tidbits:

• Despite finishing 7th in yards gained, the Steelers ranked 10th in points scored. In the regular season, the Steelers possessed the football an average of 30 minutes, 22 seconds but scored only 24.9 points per game. Roethlisberger opened up the year completing 65.6% of his passes over the first nine weeks with an 11:0 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His red zone passer rating of 112.1 ranked 6th of all quarterbacks with 10+ red zone attempts as he spread the ball to Brown (6 receptions, 3 touchdowns) and TE Jesse James (5 receptions, 3 touchdowns). Since Pittsburgh’s 10th game, Roethlisberger has completed just 34.4% of his red zone passes, with a 2:3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His passer rating of 25.0 is the worst of any quarterback in the entire league, and this includes a pair of games against the Cleveland Browns.

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• During home games, the Steelers scored TDs in the redzone 56.4 percent of the time. But that dropped to 37 percent when playing on the road. Despite their playoff success is the Steelers haven't scored a touchdown since the third quarter of the wild-card game against the Miami Dolphins on Jan. 8. And that was at the end of a 25-yard scoring drive set up by Ryan Shazier's interception

• Against the Chiefs last week in Kansas City, Pittsburgh's red zone offense was virtually nonexistent. Roethlisberger and the Steelers’ four other offensive Pro Bowlers crossed the Chiefs’ 30-yard line five times and were denied on every one of those drives. Not only did they fail to make big plays in the red zone, they nearly failed to make any plays at all: From inside the Chiefs’ 30, Roethlisberger completed six of 15 passes for just nine yards, converted zero first downs through the air, committed his only turnover and surrendered his only sack.

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FiveThirtyEight breaks this down in more detail and concludes that the Patriots have a decisive edge in defending the red zone.

[Click Here For Full Entry]​

The Pats defense does what the Chiefs do, only better. The Pats “bent” far less than the Chiefs, allowing an average of 42 fewer yards per game. And they “broke” far less often, too, allowing points on a league-low 26.7 percent of drives (the Chiefs rank 10th at 33.5 percent)." Over the regular season, the Chiefs ranked slightly higher in red-zone touchdown defense (fourth, 45.6 percent) than the Patriots (eighth, 51.1 percent). But over each team’s last three regular-season games, the Patriots rank second in the league with a red-zone touchdown allowance rate of just 28.6 percent; that’s one slot higher than Kansas City (third, 30 percent).​

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This point hasn't been pushed enough. The IDEA of the Steelers offense is great. The reality, note so much.

I think it wont matter in this game. There has been a lot of cry that haley doesnt run the ball enough in the redzone. I bet they do this in this game the way bell is playing.

SVN said:

I think it wont matter in this game. There has been a lot of cry that haley doesnt run the ball enough in the redzone. I bet they do this in this game the way bell is playing.

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I don't know.

A pattern shown throughout the entire regular season including one playoff game is not something I would just brush aside. Honestly, I think that changing their red zone play-calling on a somewhat short, disease-ridden week is pretty risky.

Personally, the two "small" adjustments I expect the Steelers to make is to line Bell out wide a few times to create a matchup against one of our LBs and to use their TE against our seams.

In the redzone specifically the Steelers are who they are. I think they are more dangerous from around the 25 yard line than from within 10 yards.

Well if you keep them to field goals and get a turnover or two, the offense better BETTER make sure to turn those into TDs

luuked said:

I don't know.

A pattern shown throughout the entire regular season including one playoff game is not something I would just brush aside. Honestly, I think that changing their red zone play-calling on a somewhat short, disease-ridden week is pretty risky.

Personally, the two "small" adjustments I expect the Steelers to make is to line Bell out wide a few times to create a matchup against one of our LBs and to use their TE against our seams.

In the redzone specifically the Steelers are who they are. I think they are more dangerous from around the 25 yard line than from within 10 yards.

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Do you think they're the most dangerous team of the 4 left when it comes to the big play of 20+ yards and taking it to the house with Bell and Brown?

luuked said:

I don't know.

A pattern shown throughout the entire regular season including one playoff game is not something I would just brush aside. Honestly, I think that changing their red zone play-calling on a somewhat short, disease-ridden week is pretty risky.

Personally, the two "small" adjustments I expect the Steelers to make is to line Bell out wide a few times to create a matchup against one of our LBs and to use their TE against our seams.

In the redzone specifically the Steelers are who they are. I think they are more dangerous from around the 25 yard line than from within 10 yards.

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Lets see. I expect them to rush bell in the redzone more than they did in KC and PAP to james or whoever the TE is. They got too pass happy in KC in the RZ when bell was easily getting yards.

ArchAngel007 said:

Do you think they're the most dangerous team of the 4 left when it comes to the big play of 20+ yards and taking it to the house with Bell and Brown?

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No. Big Ben has been very inconsistent this year, especially in road games. Roethlisberger has thrown nine touchdowns to nine interceptions on the road this year (playoffs included), compared to 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions at home. During the regular season, Pittsburgh averaged 7.2 net yards per attempt in wins and 5.4 in losses, "which is roughly the difference between the performances of the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns in 2016"

If Roethlisberger makes mistakes as he is prone to make, and Belichick, true to form, takes away either Bell or Brown, that subtracts two key elements of what makes Pittsburgh's offense so explosive. And given the Steelers went 0-for-4 in red zone appearances against Kansas City, Roethlisberger's other weapons -- Jesse James, Eli Rogers and Cobi Hamilton -- may still prove to not be enough IMO

How often have we seen that stats like poor redzone or poor road numbers which we expect a team be vs the pats go out of a window. I remember the 2012 raven offense was nothing to write out but they just moved easily on us in the AFCCG.

SVN said:

How often have we seen that stats like poor redzone or poor road numbers which we expect a team be vs the pats go out of a window. I remember the 2012 raven offense was nothing to write out but they just moved easily on us in the AFCCG.

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2016 defense is light years better than the one we had in 2012. To your point we are facing a much better offense though.

SVN said:

How often have we seen that stats like poor redzone or poor road numbers which we expect a team be vs the pats go out of a window. I remember the 2012 raven offense was nothing to write out but they just moved easily on us in the AFCCG.

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Not very often.
One example if something kinda sorta related doesn't dismiss what teans have actually done on the field.

SVN said:

I think it wont matter in this game. There has been a lot of cry that haley doesnt run the ball enough in the redzone. I bet they do this in this game the way bell is playing.

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That's okay. The Steelers have one back. One. Against the Chiefs, the Steelers rushed 34 times. 30 by Bell. 4 by Roethlisberger. Who do the Patriots have to always keep a man on?

In the Red Zone, Bell will find himself confronted with a defense that is both sure-handed when tackling and very disciplined in gap assignments. He won't find un-occupied gaps which means he's going to have to break tackles in a crowded space. Bell is not Marshawn Lynch or even LeGarrette Blount.