You probably liked the numbers ESPN.com’s Brian Burke gave us about the Steelers pass-rush Thursday. So you are inclined to believe them.

You may not like what he has to say about the Steelers’ offensive line, so these stats you’ll probably want to dismiss.

That’s usually how it works when it comes to a lot of the deep-dive analytics in sports: Give me the data that supports my preconceived theory, and I’ll trumpet your research to the masses.

The results that disprove what I prefer to believe, though?

Eh, they are just empty numbers that “don’t reflect the true story.”

That seems to be how we the public react to lots of other topics like corsi in hockey, WAR in baseball, and you know … climate change.

Now we are talking about the Steelers’ offensive line, though. So this is much more important.

The Steelers’ offensive line was vilified in Pittsburgh as recently as 2013. Since then, the unit has been rebuilt into what has been perceived to be a constant, consistently high-performing unit beloved by the fan base.

Le’Veon Bell became an All-Pro running back behind that unit. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s sack total dipped from 42 in 2013 to an average of 23 over the five seasons since then.

However, according to what Burke found via the NFL’s Next Gen Stats player-tracking data, 2018 was just an average season for the Steelers’ offensive line when it came to pass protection.

On the surface, Roethlisberger’s 24 sacks were the most since 33 in 2014. Then again, his attempts (699) were a career high. So that translates to a “sacked rate” for Roethlisberger of just 3.43%. Only the Colts’ and Patriots’ offensive lines were better in that category in 2018.

However, receivers getting open quickly and quarterbacks releasing the ball or eluding the rush come into play heavily in that stat, too.

According to the NFL player-tracking data, the Steelers’ offensive line was much more toward the middle of the pack when it came to winning one-on-one pass-protection battles.

“From a scale of 1-10, the Steelers were pretty much a 5 in terms of pass blocking last year,” Burke said.

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https://triblive.com/sports/analytic...-as-you-think/