Steelers 4 Downs: Stats make a case Alex Highsmith having season on par with even T.J. Watt
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1. Higher Highsmith
Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt is a future Hall of Famer, the one with the record contract and seemingly headed toward being a finalist for the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award for the fourth time.
But Watt’s running mate as the terrorizer off the edge of their defense is having a pretty good season, too.
Long referred to as the “Robin” to Watt’s “Batman,” Highsmith in 2023 is no mere sidekick. At least, judging by some of the more advanced numbers.
The NFL’s Next Gen Stats arm credited Highsmith with an eye-popping 11 pressures of Tennessee quarterback Will Levis during Thursday night’s win. In the process, Highsmith took over the NFL lead in pressures for the season with 49. And though Highsmith has “only” 4½ sacks through eight games, those sacks have generally come at crucial moments. Next Gen Stats reports that Highsmith leads the NFL in win probability added on sacks (plus-74.0%).
Highsmith’s game Thursday — during which nine of his pressures came against Titans left tackle Andre Dillard — was the fourth this season when Highsmith had at least seven pressures. That’s tied with Dallas Cowboys star Micah Parsons for most in the league.
2. But what do others say?
In an illustration of how inexact or open to interpretation some of these metrics can be, Pro Football Focus credits Highsmith with “only” 38 pressures this season, tied for ninth most among edge rushers and one fewer than Watt. Highsmith ranks 12th among PFF’s subjective grades for pass rushing and 11th overall among edge defenders. Watt grades out seventh and fourth in those categories.
Sports Info Solutions calculates an all-encompassing measure of a player’s worth, assigning points to each in a mathematical approximation of how much value he adds to his team translated to the scoreboard. Per SIS’s methodology, Watt (37 points) has been the fourth-most valuable defensive player in the NFL, trailing only three cornerbacks. Watt leads all edge defenders; Highsmith is fourth with 23 points of value added.
Even with Highsmith playing so well this season, he likely still is indeed the Robin to the extraordinary Watt’s Batman.
Related
• Steelers inside linebackers rise to challenge after knee injury to Cole Holcomb
• 5 things we learned: Steelers could use a hand to help out WR Diontae Johnson
• Mark Madden: Think these are the best of times for Steelers? You’re fooling yourself
3. DJ dominates
Diontae Johnson has re-established himself as the Steelers’ No. 1 wide receiver over the past two games, totaling 15 catches for 175 yards and a touchdown over a five-day span last week.
Against Tennessee, Johnson was judged by Next Gen Stats to have seven “catchable” targets. He caught all of them, producing a touchdown and four other first downs. Among 29 routes run, Next Gen judged Johnson with two “contested” throws, and he caught both. Johnson on Thursday produced 3.10 yards per route run, a figure that over the course of the full season would rank him fourth among NFL wide receivers, between stars A.J. Brown and Justin Jefferson.
The 4.2 average yards of separation from his nearest defender that Next Gen judged Johnson to have created against the Titans would rank sixth in the league over the full season.
4. Darnell down
Among what is available on the NFL’s media website for traditional statistics, there is a number that is overly simple but perhaps can be described as the most intricate of “old-school” metrics: net yards over average.
It takes leaguewide, season-long rates for yards per play to establish a baseline and then applies what a team “produces” when each player is on the field for a particular snap. Over time, players build up net yards per play that are “over” average or “under” average.
It’s far from perfect, and a case could be made the number is irrelevant in regards to evaluating players (think how plus/minus has lost its luster in the NHL). But it still can reveal notable numbers.
And in the case of Steelers rookie tight end Darnell Washington, it is not kind.
Despite 26 players playing more snaps from scrimmage for the Steelers than Washington, Washington ranks dead last in net yards over average at minus-480.57.
Washington is last on the team in accumulated net yards per rush offensively (minus-192.23). Per pass on a per-play basis, no one who has played at least 50 offensive snaps on the season for the Steelers has brought worse production (the Steelers average minus-2.16 below league average per pass attempt when Washington is on the field).
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