Steelers Must Win? By the Numbers, Saints Defense
By Kim Myers
The Pittsburgh Steelers return to action this week following their bye to head down the home stretch of the season in hopefully winning fashion. While they’re preparing to face the New Orleans Saints at home we’re busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Sunday, Nov. 30th.
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Must win game?
The Steelers.com Live crew debates whether or not today’s game against the Saints is a must win for the Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger certainly agrees and it’s hard to argue that it’s not. The Steelers can’t afford to not keep pace with the rest of the division and while mathematically it’s not a must-win game, as Mike Prisuta points out, it’s definitely a good mind set for the Steelers going into their final five game stretch to look at each game as must-win.
Steelers vs. Saints: By the numbers
ESPN’s Scott Brown breaks down today’s game against the Saints by the numbers. The first number is 1, which is Ben Roethlisberger’s NFL rank in passing yards at home. The next number that sticks out is 19, the number of points the Steelers have outscored their opponent by in the fourth quarter. A big one that the Steelers are going to look to take advantage of is 47.9, which is the conversion rate the Saints defense has allowed on third down, which is the worst in the NFL.
Saints’ defense hurts
New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan realizes that the team has been a disappointment so far this season. The failures on the Saints defense have had a lot to do with that. According to Around the NFL writer Kevin Patra, the Saints have struggled on defense with everything from missing tackles to blown coverages. They rank 27th in total defense and 29th in takeaways. As stated above, they’re also the worst at allowing their opponents to convert their third downs. With all of these things taken into account, it’s not likely that they’re going to fix all their problems on a short week so Patra is expecting Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell to have big days.