Now that we’ve had some time to let the Pittsburgh Steelers 30-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers sink in a little, we decided to dig into the stats. The news doesn’t get a lot better for the Steelers just looking at the numbers but here are four stats we found quite interesting.
10 rushes
Pittsburgh only rushed the football 10 times. And technically, the Steelers only had nine rushes by backs. Najee Harris finished with 31 yards on only six carries but in context, 24 of those yards came on a single carry.
391 yards
All individual plays aside, the Steelers defense as a unit allowed 391 yards which should be unheard of for a Pittsburgh defense. This included 152 rushing yards by running back Christian McCaffrey.
12 first downs
Removing the three first downs the Steelers gained from penalties (3), Pittsburgh was only able to muster 12 first downs. This was clearly an issue for head coach Mike Tomlin in the post-game press conference and it will be a point of emphasis this week.
22:37 and 7 points
In a game where a team loses by 23 points, you don’t expect the losing team to hold onto the football for very long. The Steelers only possessed the football for just over 22 of 60 minutes. This is just brutal to a defense that was dealing with injuries along the defensive line.
