1. King George
In the eight weeks prior to Mason Rudolph taking over as Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback, George Pickens averaged 39.3 yards per game.
In the two games with Rudolph throwing him the ball, Pickens is averaging 29.7 yards per catch.
Between Oct. 29 and Dec. 16 with Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky as his quarterbacks, Pickens totaled one touchdown and two receptions of at least 34 yards. Over the past two games with Rudolph, Pickens has two touchdowns and five receptions of 34 or more yards.
Rudolph has targeted Pickens with a team-high 30.6% of his passes, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. That’s a full 10% higher than the 20.6% target rate Pickens was receiving over the first 14 games of the season.
Pickens during the past two games has amassed 51.8% of the team’s air yards (how far downfield the receiver is when thrown to) with an average depth of target of 15.0 yards. During this past week’s win in Seattle, Pickens had 66.68% of the Steelers air yards, highest among all receivers for their respective teams in Week 17.
2. Separate this
The aspect of Pickens’ massive production these past two weeks that seems to defy intuition and amaze is he’s accumulating the yards and long catches despite consistently close coverage. Among 72 qualifying NFL pass catchers last weekend, only nine averaged less separation from the nearest defender at the time of the catch or incompletion (1.9 yards). Pickens similarly averaged a mere 1.9 yards of separation during his 195-yard, two-touchdown outburst the week prior against the Cincinnati Bengals — only six wide receivers across the league averaged less in Week 16.
Over the past two weeks there were only three instances of a receiver who managed less than 2.0 average yards of separation attaining 100 receiving yards. Two of those were by Pickens.
3. TD vulture
The Steelers’ running back duo of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren has combined for 11 touchdowns this season. There is a clear distinction delineating between how — or at least, from where — each has scored.
None of Harris’ touchdowns has been from longer than 10 yards away. None of Warren’s touchdowns has been shorter than from 14 yards away.
Harris’ carries that have resulted in touchdowns average 5.4 yards; Warren’s average a whopping 30.3 — buoyed significantly by his 74-yard touchdown during a November loss in Cleveland.
When the Steelers are inside the opponents’ 10 yard-line, Harris has 18 carries. He has seven carries from inside the 5. Warren, meanwhile, has just seven carries from inside the 10 and three from inside the 5.
4. Can’t tackle ’em
Warren and Harris rank among the NFL leaders in broken tackles and yards after contact. In pro-football-reference.com’s metrics among the 46 NFL running backs with the most carries, Harris ranks tied for first and Warren tied for third in yards after contact per attempt at 2.5 and 2.3 yards, respectively.
Harris ranks second in the NFL in what Pro Football Reference defined as a broken tackle (27) and is third in attempts per broken tackle (8.2). Warren has the fourth-most broken tackles in the league (25) — but on a per-carry basis Warren is by far the NFL leader at an average of 5.6 attempts per broken tackle.
Sports Info Solutions (SIS) says Harris and Warren rank Nos. 1-2 in the league in broken tackles (33 and 29, respectively) with Warren leading the league at a 17% rate of broken tackles.
Counting what SIS defines not as missed tackles (ones avoided via agility as opposed to physicality), Warren and Harris tie for fifth most avoided tackles in the NFL with 43 each.
