Like it Or Not, Steelers Missed TE Matt Spaeth Last Season

[GBMelBlount]

The Pittsburgh Steelers lost several key players to injuries last season, but one player that’s not talked about a lot as being a big loss is backup tight end Matt Spaeth.

Spaeth went down last year in training camp with a Lisfranc injury and as a result he needed surgery and missed the first 12 games of the season. Like or not, the Steelers running game suffered without him.

With Spaeth sidelined most of the season, the Steelers were forced to use David Paulson, Michael Palmer and David Johnson as second tight ends in addition to an occasional extra tackle. As you can see in the stats below, the Steelers running game was dismal when all three were on the field.

Now, I don’t want to give the appearance that this was 142 different running plays, as often times a combination of the three were on the field at the same time. I can tell you, however, that there were roughly 100 different running plays last season that did not include a combination of two or more of those three players. When you consider that the Steelers ran the ball nearly 400 times last season, you can see that at least one of those three players was on the field for 25% of those runs.

http://www.steelersdepot.com/2014/07...+Depot+Blog%29

[steelreserve]

Interesting analysis, but the important part it misses is that Spaeth still sucks. He just sucks a little less than any of the absolute garbage TEs we always have riding the end of the bench.


A few other things that weren't mentioned:

- Bell was out for the start of the season, so we had a bunch of ineffective clowns running the ball

- Of the last four teams we played, two were just bad (Miami and Cleveland), one was overrated (Cincinnati), and the other was not playing very good football at the time (Green Bay).

- Three of the last four games were high-scoring games

- Most importantly, at the end of the season we were winning, because the whole team was playing better. Not least of which was the offensive line, which was a total mess for the first half of the season but finally became at least passable.


So .. yeah. Maybe we did better with Spaeth, but I don't think that's much of a reflection on how he contributes as much as how bad the other guys were, and on a bunch of other things that had nothing to do with Spaeth. He could disappear tomorrow and I don't think we'd notice any difference.

[tube517]

Skippy misses him as his lookout to pee pee on the fire hydrant.

[ALLD]

It wasn't Spaeth specifically, but the need for at least a serviceable TE. The leftovers that played should be dishing out soup at the Salvation Army.

[steelreserve]

It wasn't Spaeth specifically, but the need for at least a serviceable TE. The leftovers that played should be dishing out soup at the Salvation Army.

That's being a little generous - they should be the ones EATING the soup at the Salvation Army.

[Psycho Ward 86]

i know pro football focus isnt always to be taken with pinpoint accuracy but Matt Spaeth was labeled a secret superstar on there before and he was the #1 run blocking tight end in 2012.

[ALLD]

He is a tall RT that can catch sometimes.

[Shoes]

Blanchflower can block and catch, training camp will be interesting.