The Pittsburgh Steelers are prepping for their season finale, trying to right a three-game losing streak against the surging Cincinnati Bengals who have won their last four games on Saturday night.
Among Pittsburgh’s issues have been slow starts on offense, including opening drives. Today I wanted to look at and provide data context to this, and compare their marks around the league. Here’s a link to a similar study on Pittsburgh’s opening drive stats through Week 10 I’ll reference to see season trends.
To start, here are offenses opening drive average number of plays and yards per game:
Right away we see that the Steelers offense has been below the mean in average plays and yards on opening drives.