Friday Football Footnotes: Steelers stats, trends, history and hoopla heading down to Houston
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Previewing any Pittsburgh Steelers game is incomplete without a healthy helping of stats, sidebars, trends, tendencies, history and hoopla.
As the Black and Gold prepare for a road trip to Houston on Sunday, we give you all that and more in this week’s “Friday Football Footnotes.”
• If you liked seeing the Terrible Towel takeover of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas last week, you might get a similar view at NRG Stadium in Houston on Sunday.
According to Vivid Seats’ “Fan Forecast,” which projects crowd outcomes, currently 55% of the crowd at NRG Stadium will be Steelers fans.
Prior to Pittsburgh’s game in Las Vegas, Vivid Seats projected a 60% turnout from Steelers fans. Anecdotally, many of those in attendance said that they felt the split was even more in favor of Pittsburgh fans than that once the game started.
Vivid Seats also says the average resale ticket price is going for $290. Only the Philadelphia Eagles home game against the Washington Commanders is catching a fatter price at $335.
• That ticket disparity might be even more in favor of the Steelers if it wasn’t for what’s happening at halftime.
The Texans are inducting former defensive lineman J.J. Watt into the team’s Ring of Honor. So far, only two other men have been enshrined: wide receiver Andre Johnson and late owner Bob McNair.
9️⃣9️⃣ is coming home ???? pic.twitter.com/DHwWVkWUoi
— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) June 12, 2023
Watt was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year with the Texans and retired with 114.5 sacks, the 24th most in the history of the NFL. Watt’s younger brother, T.J., has six sacks for the Steelers to lead the NFL. He has 83.5 for his career.
• Former Steeler Kendrick Green is now starting at left guard for the Texans. Based on his struggles at center for the Steelers during his time here, you might be wondering if that’s a disaster waiting to happen for the Houston offensive line.
But Houston head coach DeMeco Ryans insists that Green is performing well.
“Kendrick has done a really good job,” Ryans told the Pittsburgh media this week. “I know he played center over there, but he stepped in at guard for us, and he’s very athletic. That jumps off the tape, his ability to get to the second level. I love his tenacity and how he tries to finish his blocks off. I’m encouraged with him. We’ve only had him for a short time, but I’ve been pleased with what he’s able to bring to our offensive line in such a short time period.”
Green’s Pro Football Focus numbers aren’t great: 64.5 pass block, 54.6 run block, and 55.3 overall (52nd among guards in the NFL). That said, PFF is only pinning three pressures on Green so far in those two starts.
Regardless, the Steelers should expect interior defensive linemen such as Larry Ogunjobi, DeMarvin Leal, and Keeanu Benton to clean house in that matchup.
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• This will be the Steelers’ fourth trip to Houston since the Texans franchise was launched in 2002. They won two of the first three visits.
The eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers won their first game at (then) Reliant Stadium 27-7 in September 2005. Troy Polamalu had three of the team’s eight sacks, Willie Parker rushed for 111 yards, and Hines Ward caught two touchdowns from Ben Roethlisberger.
Houston won a 17-10 decision in 2011 behind Matt Schaub at quarterback and 155 yards rushing from Arian Foster.
Then the Steelers won 34-6 on Christmas Day 2017 thanks, in part, to three sacks from Mike Hilton. The Steelers are 5-2 overall against the Texans.
• Ryans comes from the San Francisco 49ers coaching tree. Based on what many Steelers players and coaches said this week, the bone structure of what the Niners do schematically on both sides of the ball is present in Houston already.
“You see a lot of similarities,” quarterback Kenny Pickett said Wednesday. “Obviously, San Fran kept a lot of the same things that the head coach now does at the Texans. He’s a great coach, did an unbelievable job at San Fran, and now he’s doing a great job in Houston. So, it’s going to be a tough task for us.”
Perhaps. But the Texans are yielding 5.6 yards per play, 28th in the league. While they may have San Francisco’s defensive framework in place, they don’t have clones of San Francisco’s players. Houston doesn’t exactly have duplicates of Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Talanoa Hufanga at every level.
So Pickett and the Steelers shouldn’t avoid the middle of the field in the same way the 49ers made it difficult to attack in Week 1.
“I think you always have to utilize it,” Pickett said. “They do some things schematically that are similar to San Fran that you know may discourage you here or there. But we’ve got to execute at the end of the day. We’ll have plays to get guys in positions to be successful. We’ve just got to do what we did on Sunday night, and there were plays that we left out there as well. So, there’s always improvement.”
Hopefully, that means more Pat Freiermuth. The tight end had three catches (one for a touchdown) on four targets last week in Vegas. That’s better than the one target he received versus Cleveland. But it can still be more.
• The Steelers defense made great strides in the run game Sunday. They limited Vegas to 69 yards rushing after San Francisco got 188 in Week 1 and Cleveland racked up 198 in Week 2.
“I just thought we were out of place less,” coach Mike Tomlin said of his run defense in Las Vegas. “Sometimes out of place less means no open gaps, which was the case. But also, sometimes, out of place means not being in position to tackle and thus creating more broken tackles. … We’re moving with greater fluidity to our areas of responsibility, and we’re getting there with more frequency. So we’re minimizing missed tackles and open gaps.”
Hopefully, for Tomlin and company, that trend continues Sunday. The Texans are averaging just 2.8 yards per carry, tied with Tampa Bay for the worst average in the NFL.
Listen: Tim Benz and Sean Pendergast of Sports Radio 610 in Houston talk about Sunday’s Steelers-Texans game.