For yet another season, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense got off to slow starts. While things were better the first half of the year and ulimtately, the Steelers saw more first-drive success in 2021 than the past two seasons, new data paints how much the team struggled with its first 15 “scripted” plays, ones that are typically mapped out before the game by the offensive coordinator.
Data analyst Sam Hoppen plotted the team’s EPA (expected points added) over the team’s first 15 plays versus the rest of the game.
The chart is shown below with the EPA for scripted plays plotted along the horizontal, X-axis and unscripted along the Y, vertical axis.