The Pittsburgh Steelers have overhauled position rooms this offseason, with quarterbacks dominating most of the national headlines. One position that is more under the radar, aside from our coverage on Steelers Depot, is the slot cornerback position.
I have done several studies on defensive backs (DBs) this offseason, and I wanted to provide another angle looking at slot coverage reps last season for the current Steelers secondary. This article will focus on DBs with a minimum of 30 slot snaps and five targets, looking at several coverage stats from Sports Info Solutions (SIS).
Let’s dive in. Here’s 2023 slot coverage snaps and targets for quantity context:
Overall, we see that the majority of current Steelers were below the mean in slot opportunities compared to the 195 qualifying DBs. The exceptions were Cameron Sutton and Joey Porter Jr., particularly the former. Sutton had 208 slot coverage snaps (T-38th), despite playing much more on the outside last season. In his last hoorah with Pittsburgh in 2022, he also played substantially in the slot. I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but that likely plan will have to wait for him to serve his eight-game suspension.
Porter spent most of his time on the outside in 2023 as well but showed encouraging strides his rookie year, including shadowing top WRs in the slot. Per SIS, his 141 were slightly above the mean and tied for 68th. His 20 targets were most of focused players, (T-45th) compared to Sutton’s 18 (T-58th).
The trendline (diagonal line) highlights opposing QBs targeting Porter most frequently in the slot out of current Steelers, which I found interesting.
Donte Jackson played outside primarily, but good to see some slot on his 2023 resume. The final three players were much lower in opportunities: Grayland Arnold, star Minkah Fitzpatrick, and new safety DeShon Elliott.
Here are the stats and ranks for all six current Steelers:
Sutton: 208 snaps (T-38th), 18 targets (T-58th).
Porter: 141 snaps (T-68th), 20 targets (T-45th).
Jackson: 127 snaps (84th), 15 targets (T-72nd).
Arnold: 65 snaps (T-156th), five targets (T-180th).
Fitzpatrick: 65 snaps (T-156th), eight targets (T-135th).
Elliott: 36 snaps (T-191st), seven targets (T-149th).
Important quantity context as we continue to learn.
Now, let’s begin to examine the quality of play with completion percentage and deserved catch rate, which is the number of completions and drops divided by the number of catchable targets and passes defensed:
Very interesting results. First, the two returning Steelers faired very well in completion-rate-allowed. Porter topped focused players with a 35.0 slot completion-rate-allowed, ranking 15th. That number was strong in all alignments in 2023, so not jaw-dropping to see, but did rank higher than I anticipated.
Fitzpatrick was close behind at a 37.5 slot completion-rate-allowed. That landed at 17th, meaning Pittsburgh had two DBs in the top 20 in the stat last season, impressively. There is a desire to get Fitzpatrick patrolling the back end where he is elite, but not too shabby in certain slot regards either.
Deserved catch rates were the worse numbers for the group overall, including Porter, Fitzpatrick, Jackson, and particularly DeShon Elliott, despite three of them being above the mean in slot completion rate allowed (minus Jackson).
Sutton was the only player to land above average in both, impressive given his highest slot snap count, while Arnold was very close as well (slightly below in completion rate). Here’s the groups numbers/ranks:
Porter: 35.0 completion-rate (15th), 84.6 deserved-catch-rate (T-117th).
Fitzpatrick: 37.5 completion-rate (17th), 85.7 deserved-catch-rate (T-120th).
Sutton: 55.6 completion-rate (T-77th), 73.3 deserved-catch-rate (T-56th).
Elliott: 57.1 completion-rate (T-88th), 100.0 deserved-catch-rate (T-164th).
Arnold: 60.0 completion-rate (T-102nd), 75.0 deserved-catch-rate (T-60th).
Jackson: 80.0 completion-rate (T-174th), 85.7 deserved-catch-rate (T-120th).
Next, let’s look at the yardage of the targets with yards per attempt and yards per game:
Fantastic to see the majority of the group land desirably on the top right of the chart. One caveat is with more slot snaps, came more yardage for the group. So, players like Elliott, Fitzpatrick, and Arnold land very encouragingly, but each had eight slot targets or less. The only below the mean results were Jackson’s 7.8 yards per attempt, and Sutton in both data points.
Here are the groups strong overall marks:
Elliott: 2.3 YPA (T-fifth), 1.2 YPG (T-fifth).
Fitzpatrick: 3.5 YPA (17th), 2.8 YPG (T-24th).
Arnold: 4.8 YPA (T-35th), 6.0 YPG (71st).
Porter: 5.7 YPA (T-61st), 7.1 YPG (82nd).
Jackson: 7.8 YPA (T-117th), 7.3 YPG (83rd).
Sutton: 8.9 YPA (T-141st), 9.5 YPG (T-114th).
Another stat used often to evaluate defenders in coverage is QBR Against (factors in completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions), so let’s see how they fare along with points saved per play (PSPP – The total EPA responsibility while in coverage using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play, with positive numbers being good.
Totals are scaled up to map to the average points scored or allowed on a team level, with the player’s snap count determining how much to adjust. For pass defenders, this includes accounting for pass rush, broken tackles, dropped interceptions, turnovers, and turnover returns.):
The more encouraging stat for the group was QBR Against, with four players landing above the mean: Fitzpatrick, Porter, Arnold, and Sutton. The only DB to land above the mean in both was Arnold, fairing favorably in most of the quality aspects of slot play, encouragingly.
The only other focused player above average in PSPP was Elliott. Nice to see for him, but emphasizes the rest of the group lacking the overall impact on the game that EPA measures, unfortunately. Jackson’s 138.8 slot QBR Against was by far the worst result of current Steelers, 13th worst among the 195 qualifiers.
Here’s the breakdown:
Fitzpatrick: 47.9 QBR (24th), -0.013 PSPP (T-155th).
Porter: 54.8 QBR (31st), 0.005 PSPP (T-140th).
Arnold: 72.1 QBR (59th), 0.064 PSPP (44th).
Sutton: 81.0 QBR (74th), 0.016 PSPP (T-124th).
Elliott: 101.8 QBR (T-128th), 0.050 PSPP (T-68th).
Jackson: 138.8 QBR (183rd), -0.004 PSPP (T-148th).
Let’s look at SIS’s Boom and Bust percentages to see the rates of big plays allowed or made in coverage.
- Boom % = The percentage of drop backs that resulted in an EPA of 1 or more (a very successful play for the offense)
- Bust % = The percentage of drop backs that resulted in an EPA of -1 of less (a very unsuccessful play for the offense)
Arnold lands on the extreme top right in this final view, with no boom plays allowed in the slot and his 60.0 bust rate ranking third-best among his peers. Yes, quantity is important to recall, but far exceeded the expectations I had going into the study. Porter was the only other above average player in both, 30th in boom rate and T-11th in bust rate, encouragingly.
Fitzpatrick’s nice 12.5 boom rate tied for 16th, but was unable to provide any bust plays from the slot. The overall group was stronger in limiting big plays from opposing offenses, but on the flipside lacked in creating bust plays, with the exceptions being Arnold and Porter.
Here’s the data:
Arnold: 0.0 Boom-Rate (T-first), 60.0 Bust-Rate (third).
Fitzpatrick: 12.5 Boom-Rate (T-16th), 0.0 Bust-Rate (T-162nd).
Porter: 15.0 Boom-Rate (30th), 40.0 Bust-Rate (T-11th).
Jackson: 26.7 Boom-Rate (T-92nd), 13.3 Bust-Rate (123rd).
Elliott: 28.6 Boom-Rate (T-101st), 0.0 Bust-Rate (T-162nd).
Sutton: 33.3 Boom-Rate (T-125th), 16.7 Bust-Rate (T-96th).
To close, here’s a wrap up rankings table of the stats:
Sutton is clearly the most experienced and likely candidate to assume slot reps after his suspension. That won’t be until Week Ten if that occurs though, and we do see some issues in the quality of his slot play last season.
Porter exceeded my expectations, and I’m really impressed with how Arnold fared overall, adding some comfort to his candidacy, albeit on a small sample size. Rookie Beanie Bishop has taken the majority of slot reps in training camp, with a similar study on in his final 2023 college season coming soon.
The question remains though, who will occupy the majority of the slot reps, and how will they fare? Time will tell, and I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out.
