4 Downs: Steelers, Chargers top NFL in myriad defensive metrics through 2 weeks
With all the caveats that it's been a mere two weeks of the NFL season, there is a strong statistical case to be made that Sunday's Pittsburgh Steelers home opener will feature the two best defenses in the league. The Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers are each 2-0 , and they have combined to allow 29 points and two touchdowns so far in 2024.
The Steelers (260.5) and Chargers (227.5) rank among the top five in the league in yards allowed. Each team ranks in the top three in opponent first downs through two weeks (Los Angeles, 21; Steelers, 28) and are Nos. 1-2 in opponents' drive score rate. Just 12.5% of Chargers defensive series have ended in a touchdown or field goal; the Steelers defense has permitted a score on a mere 14% of opponent possessions.
The more advanced metrics — both objective and subjective — also like the Steelers and Chargers' defenses. "Expected points added," as calculated by pro-football-reference.com, aims to represent the estimated point value added or lost by a unit during a given play. Its computation has Los Angeles as the NFL's best defense with the Steelers at No. 4.
Pro Football Focus grading also deems each of these defenses a top-four NFL unit. Broken down further, PFF grades the Steelers among the league's top four for tackling and pass rush, with the Chargers in the top four for run defense and pass coverage.
The teams by far lead the league in opponent points per drive with the Chargers at 0.54, Steelers 0.76 — and the Minnesota Vikings are third best at 1.10. For context, last year the Baltimore Ravens had the best opponent points per drive at 1.35.
2. The big 'Bos' man
In a season that has begun as something of a Year of the Kicker, Chris Boswell is standing out more than most . Across the league, kickers made 35 of 39 field goals from 50 or more yards over the first two weeks of the season. Boswell (four) joined the Houston Texans' Ka'imi Fairbairn (six) as the only players in league history to make more than three 50-plus yard field goals over the first two games of a season.
For his career, Boswell's 82.9% success rate (34 of 41) on field goals of 50-plus yards is the highest in the NFL for such kicks since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970.
In home games alone over his 10 years with the Steelers, Boswell has 23 field goals of at least 50 yards. For context, over the first 14-plus years at what was then called Heinz Field before Boswell joined the Steelers, there had been just four 50-or-more-yard field goals from all kickers on the Steelers or their opponents.
Broderick Jones' six-snap sequence in which he committed three penalties cost him playing time in last week's game , and it might have cost him an opportunity to start in the short term. But a dive into penalty data reveals just how rare and destructive getting flagged three times over the course of one possession truly is.
There are only four players across the entire league — regardless of position — who have had more flags thrown on them over two weeks of the season as Jones had in that 123-second span of game time?
Only two players have had more holding calls all season than the two Jones took over a three-snap span of the second quarter in Denver.
Counting an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction during Week 1 that was offset by an Atlanta penalty, Jones has had four flags thrown on him in just one full game and 14 snaps (counting special teams) in another. Just one NFL player was flagged more often through two full games this season, the Broncos' Patrick Surtain II.
After four largely injury-riddled seasons with the Baltimore Ravens , J.K. Dobbins with the Chargers in 2024 is finally looking like the highly regarded running back who was the fifth player drafted from his position in 2020 after having a 2,000-yard season his final year at Ohio State. Through two weeks, Dobbins leads in the NFL in rushing (266 yards) and yards per attempt (9.9) while ranking tied for second in rushing touchdowns (two).
In pro-football-reference.com's advanced stats for running backs, Dobbins by far leads the league in yards after contact (157) and YAC per attempt at 5.8. Only Tony Pollard (six) has more than Dobbins' five broken tackles. Then again, Dobbins has been so dominant that he also ranks third in the NFL among running backs in yards per carry before contact (4.0).
Forty-seven percent of Dobbins' carries have achieved first downs.
According to Next Gen Stats' "Rush yards over expected" metric, Dobbins has three of the NFL's six most (in Next Gen parlance) remarkable rushes. Three Dobbins carries have gained 59, 40 and 37 yards more than expected.
