Football Outsiders Analysis: Steelers lead league in GW drives allowed

[polamalubeast]

When LeBeau was defensive coordinator in Cincinnati for the first time, his defense allowed a league-high 27 game-winning drives in that time (1984-1991). Ever since Tomlin retained him in 2007, he has basically left the defense to LeBeau instead of implementing a defense which fits his own background, which is more 4-3 and Tampa-2 scheme. Since 2007, the Steelers have allowed 24 game-winning drives, tied for the fourth most in the league. The problem is, no defense gives up more drives at the end of the game than Pittsburgh, leaving Roethlisberger no real time to answer.
I broke it down two years ago, but here's an update for 2007-2014. This is where the Pittsburgh defense ranks in terms of game-winning drives allowed where the winning points came in the final two minutes or overtime.


Steelers: Game-Winning Drives Allowed, 2007-2014



Last 2:00 Last 1:00 Last 0:40 Last 0:15 OT Drives Last 0:40 + OT
12 (T-1st) 11 (1st) 11 (1st) 9 (1st) 5 (T-3rd) 16 (1st)
Time is based on remaining time when winning points were scored

Overtime aside, it's almost a clean sweep for the Steelers. They have watched opponents score the game-winning points in the final 15 seconds of nine games since 2007, two more than any other team.


Since winning Super Bowl XLIII (which also included a blown lead of 13 points in the fourth quarter), the Steelers have picked up another nasty habit: playing down to the competition.


This Tampa Bay loss is only the third time in Roethlisberger's career that he has lost a home game in which he was favored by more than seven points (-7.5 on Sunday). In each of those games he led the offense to 24 points, but the Steelers lost 27-24 to a bad Oakland team (2009) and 34-24 to a San Diego (2012) team that entered with a 4-8 record.


Does it seem like this happens a lot to Pittsburgh? I looked at spread data on Pro-Football-Reference and used games from 2009-2014 in which a team was at least a five-point favorite against a team that finished the season with a non-winning record. That way we eliminate some of the early-season guesswork and also don't penalize a team for losing to someone really good like the 2012 Patriots against the 49ers. I only looked at the teams with at least 18 such games, which basically gives us the best 16 teams in the league in recent years.



5+ Point Favorite vs. Non-Winning Team Since 2009 (Min. 18 Games)
Rk Team Straight Up Pct. Games ATS Pct. Rk
1 Atlanta Falcons 21-1 0.955 22 13-8-1 0.614 4
2 Seattle Seahawks 17-1 0.944 18 13-5 0.722 1
3 New England Patriots 43-4 0.915 47 25-21-1 0.543 9
4 San Francisco 49ers 20-2-1 0.891 23 16-6-1 0.717 2
5 Baltimore Ravens 23-3 0.885 26 13-13 0.500 11
6 Green Bay Packers 32-4-1 0.878 37 24-12-1 0.662 3
7 Dallas Cowboys 20-3 0.870 23 9-14 0.391 14
8 Denver Broncos 19-3 0.864 22 12-10 0.545 8
9 Indianapolis Colts 17-3 0.850 20 12-8 0.600 5
10 Chicago Bears 16-3 0.842 19 8-11 0.421 13
11 Houston Texans 16-5 0.762 21 11-9-1 0.548 7
12 New York Giants 16-5 0.762 21 10-10-1 0.500 12
13 San Diego Chargers 22-7 0.759 29 16-13 0.552 6
14 New Orleans Saints 28-10 0.737 38 19-18-1 0.513 10
15 Pittsburgh Steelers 21-8 0.724 29 10-19 0.345 16
16 Philadelphia Eagles 13-7 0.650 20 7-13 0.350 15



The Steelers have the second-worst record straight up and the worst record against the spread. The eight straight-up losses are only surpassed by New Orleans (10). You can move the goal posts if you want, but the end result will be the same. Tomlin loves to talk about standards, but the standards Pittsburgh has apparently set in his tenure is to be the league's top team at losing games in the final seconds and failing to take care of the opponents they were expected to beat.
Tomlin should be glad Mark Davis doesn't own the Steelers, because he would be getting a phone call very soon.



read more

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/clutch-encounters/2014/clutch-encounters-week-4

[fansince'76]

Tomlin should be glad Mark Davis doesn't own the Steelers, because he would be getting a phone call very soon.

:rolleyes:

Let's hear what a Raiders fan has to say about it:


And Fuck Mark Davis too... sell the team you fuckin' idiot!

That should tell you all you need to know about Mark Davis. Stupid comment.

And Football Outsiders? I honestly don't take much stock in anything from a site that UncleF*ckNuckle used to consider his go-to source of info when he was endlessly trying to build Mewelde Moore up to be the best RB in Steelers history due solely to a mancrush he had on Moore because he went to the same fricking college either.

The worst thing about the Steelers losing for me is probably when fuckwits who obviously have too much time on their hands to "research" things like this spew digital diarrhea such as this "analysis" all over the Internet.