Remember when Russell Wilson led the Steelers with 37 points and everything was going well? He only took one sack in that game, and it looked like the offense was finally making progress. Well, if they made progress, they definitely fell out of it.
This is no more true than in the case of pass protection, for which Russell Wilson shares considerable blame. As one of the most sackable quarterbacks historically, he’s living up to the Steelers’ billing. In fact, he’s being sacked at the worst rate of his career after a clean start. I think the game against the Jets was a mirage.
Excluding scrambles, Wilson caught 29 passes against the Jets and took one sack. That’s a very healthy severance rate of just 3.33%, which is what you want. The problem is that he and the Steelers have been hitting around 10% over the past four weeks.
Russell Wilson took 543 sacks in his career and would soon pass Ben Roethlisberger for the fourth most in NFL history. Since joining the NFL, his dropback percentage has decreased to 8.54% and he has had two seasons with rates over 10%. At worst, the current Steelers quarterback was sacked on 10.67% of his dropbacks in Seattle in 2018.
Over the past four games, he’s been sacked at a much higher rate than that. Wilson’s dropback percentage this season was 9.7%. This is already the fourth-worst figure of his career. However, since Week 8, he has reduced 11.11% of his dropbacks.
The Steelers have allowed Wilson to be sacked 15 times over the last four games, at least three times in each game. He attempted 120 passes during that span. Includes 135 dropbacks and 15 sacks.He is on pace to take the most sacks per drop of his career.
Of course, Russell Wilson is a common denominator with a high sack rate over the course of his career. However, it’s difficult to really rate the Steelers in pass protection given that Justin Fields has also had a historically high percentage of sacks. The vision test showed that this is a concern right now. This is especially true when it comes to right tackling.
But Wilson’s own problems, including declining mobility over the years, only made matters worse. Sometimes he looks his age, even when he thinks he can run like a 25-year-old. The Steelers should get him out of this situation, but they don’t.
It doesn’t help that the Steelers have to draft two rookies. RG Mason McCormick approves of the Browns I showed them a different side. It gave rise to a crime problem. Zach Frazier had a very good rookie season. But playing with a rookie has a ripple effect on the entire line and quarterback. Wilson and company must always make sure they know what they are doing, even if they almost always do.
