1. Pick ‘em, Pickens

If you add up all of Justin Fields’ 109 pass attempts for the Pittsburgh Steelers so far this season, the ball was sent downfield a net 698 yards. And more than half of those “air yards” have been thrown to George Pickens.

Pickens — at 54.61%, according to Next Gen Stats — is one of three players in the NFL to account for more than half of his team’s intended yards downfield. Only Washington’s Terry McLaurin (57.13%) has a higher share.

During last week’s game at Indianapolis, Pickens was responsible for 63.68% of the Steelers intended air yards downfield. He accounted for 70.19% of the Steelers’ receiving yards among their wide receivers.

For the season, Pickens’ production dwarfs that of the entirety of the rest of the Steelers WR corps. Pickens has 20 catches for 284 yards, while the grouping of Calvin Austin III, Van Jefferson, Scotty Miller and the since-injured Ben Skowronek have combined for a paltry 14 catches for 192 yards through four games.

Pickens deserves the lion’s share of the attention, though. ESPN recently released its “Receiver Scores” that use player-tracking data to evaluate every route a pass catcher runs and scores his performance at getting open, catching passes and gaining yards after the catch. For 2024, Pickens ranks as the NFL’s ninth-best overall wide receiver — including fifth in “open” score and tied for seventh in “catch” score.

2. Step down in class

Per Sharp Football Analytics as based on the all-encompassing rush defense efficiency metric, no team in the NFL has faced a tougher start to the season in facing quality run defenses than the Steelers. All four of their opponents rank in the top half of the NFL in that category, including three among the top seven.

Things are about to ease up for the Steelers, however, and considerably so. Beginning Sunday against Dallas, the Steelers face five consecutive opponents from the bottom half of the league in rush defense efficiency — including three of the bottom six in the Cowboys, Raiders (next week) and Commanders (Nov. 10).

Taking out quarterback runs, the Cowboys are third-worst per the analytics against the run.

By traditional yards per carry, only four teams have a worse average through four weeks than the Steelers’ 3.7. Among 49 qualifying running backs, only four have had a lower average yards-before-contact per carry than Najee Harris at 1.3.

3. Fields when the field is short

When the Steelers approach the end zone, they are keeping the ball in Fields’ hands.

No quarterback has more carries this season on plays that originate inside the opponents’ 10-yard line than Fields. His seven carries in such situations is two more than any other quarterback in the league. Fields has three rushing touchdowns on carries from inside the 10, tied for the fifth-most in the NFL (regardless of position) and trailing only Washington rookie Jayden Daniels (four) among quarterbacks.

Fields has seven of the Steelers’ 11 carries from the 10-yard line in. The other four are from Harris. Fields has three of the Steelers’ four carries from inside the 5.

4. Misters October

Sunday is the first Steelers game in October this season, and typically that means good things. The Steelers by far have the most October wins in the NFL since 1970. Their 141 is nine more than New England’s second-most 132. The .656 winning percentage during this particular month also is best in the league over the past 54 years.

The Steelers have been undefeated 10 times during October, including six times since the turn of the century (2000, 2001, 2004, 2009, 2018 and 2020). The Steelers also have the NFL’s best home record in October games (83-24) since the 1970 merger.

Mike Tomlin is 44-21 overall and 26-8 at home during October since he became Steelers coach in 2007.

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