 So the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't in the playoffs after being seven two and one after ten games They lost four of their final six games. They're not dancing as a result and we've got takes We've got lots and lots of takes and I've got them too on Wednesday's show I talked about how team record isn't everything It is in the sense that it's all that matters for a team when trying to make the playoffs But it isn't everything when we're evaluating how a team actually performed and that's key with the Steelers We can sit and look at their season and say it was a massive failure And it was the Steelers are far too talented of a team to not be playing in the playoffs right now But it's not like they went five and eleven and it's not like they didn't play well throughout the season According to number fires nerd metric, which tells us how many points a team would be expected to win by against an average one On a neutral field the Steelers were the ninth best team in football this year That metric factors in all sorts of things like overall efficiency point differential and strength of schedule If you look at team point differential the Steelers ranked 11th again They were an elite and we can all probably just conclude that they underperformed this year with a ranking of 11th But they weren't this horrific team what I found interesting is that their actual performance this year So again, we're not looking strictly at record But their actual performance this season wasn't totally far off from what we've seen over the last four years when they've made the playoffs Three years ago. They had a point differential of 72 That's just four points higher than this season according to nerd the Steelers had a rating of five point zero one this year That means we'd expect them to beat an average team on a neutral field by about five points last year that number was seven point two Two years ago. It was one point five three years ago It was eight point three and four years ago three point one This is all to say that Pittsburgh probably didn't perform all that differently than how they've performed over the last four years When they've made the playoffs so why didn't they make the playoffs? That's really the question everyone seems to be answering this week I think the most irritating thing about football analysis You can probably say this about any sort of analysis is the black and white thinking that goes into it the gray area rarely exists I'm sure I'm guilty of thinking this way at times I'm sure I simplify things when they shouldn't be simplified take the running back value debate If you've listened to my annoying voice for a while now, you know my stance on running back value I don't think running backs are very important in real football fake football is completely different But in real football, it's a replaceable position, but simply saying running backs don't matter isn't fair That's an oversimplification. It's a black and white way of thinking Running backs can matter. It's just really hard for them to matter consistently year over year and over a long period of time And I talked about that in a giant study that I did on the position this past offseason over on number fire comm Now I do think oversimplifying can be okay as long as it's understood that you're talking within context If someone says running backs don't matter as long as there's an understanding of context Then there's probably less of an issue as long as there's an understanding that they don't matter because for instance There's an insane supply of them then fire those running backs don't matter tweets out there But if we're being literal obviously, I couldn't go run behind the Steelers offensive line and be effective So from that standpoint running backs do matter But like I said people are looking for answers as to why the Steelers didn't make the playoffs This is despite the fact that the team really wasn't all that much different performance wise and the Steelers seems that we've seen over the last Four years and naturally the easy way to figure out what went wrong is to compare the team from last year to this year And I think we all know what the obvious difference was at least from a personnel standpoint It was Levy on Bell and to many that single player Levy on Bell is now the reason the Steelers didn't make the playoffs this year Go ahead and Twitter search Levy on Bell in playoffs and take a look at the results These takes are out there and they're out there in full force But to pinpoint Levy on Bell as the key reason Pittsburgh Steelers are golfing today is really misinformed in 2018 Only the Arizona Cardinals had fewer rushing yards in the Pittsburgh Steelers since the media is obsessed with cumulative statistics This is probably a key reason people think Bell's absence was a big deal, but it's ignoring what actually happened It's ignoring what did happen and what did happen was the Steelers threw for over 5,000 yards And they were sixth in the NFL in yards per play in 2017 the Steelers ranked seventh in yards per play in 2016 And they were also seventh in 2015 they ranked second and what's funny is that in 2015 Levy on Bell played fewer than six games if Levy on Bell was the reason the Steelers didn't make the playoffs Don't you think we would have seen a drop-off in offensive production just some sort of drop-off Maybe you're sitting there thinking that Bell's absence hurt the Steelers because of time of possession When you run the ball, you can control the clock and when you control the clock your defense gets more rest Well first off Ben Baldwin did a study on football outsiders Passed off season on how running the football doesn't equate to defense is getting rest And I think this notion of clock control has sort of just been driven into our heads as fact without any substantial proof Because why is it that a team with a good passing attack can't extend drives? If we know that passing is more efficient than rushing and that's something that's objectively true Then why is it that running the ball is what controls the clock and not sustain drives through the air? But even if you want to make the clock control argument It's not really there an average Pittsburgh drive this year ate up two minutes and 51 seconds of clock last year It was two minutes and 56 seconds the year before that two minutes and 48 seconds And the year before that was even worse at two minutes and 34 seconds So this year's time of possession was actually pretty damn good for the Steelers when comparing it to previous seasons You can even look strictly at the running backs that Pittsburgh used and see that there wasn't an efficiency drop-off at the position this year Now yours per carry is a dumb statistic so I won't go there But I will tell you that James Connors four and a half yards per carry was better than lavy on Bell's four mark last year But that's a dumb statistic I hate that statistic because it needs context some context can be found in number fire success rate metric This metric measures the percentage of positive expected points plays made by a player if the player provides Positive expected points on a play. It's deemed a success. If not, it's a failure Bell's 2017 success rate was thirty nine point six percent the average across the NFL was thirty eight point one percent in 2018 the NFL average at running back jumped to forty one point two percent James Connors success rate was forty four point seven percent in other words Connors outperformed his seasons league average by a higher Margin than lavy on Bell did hits maybe you're now thinking well Yeah, Connor didn't face fronts as tough as lavy on Bell did Defenses respect lavy on Bell more well according to ESPN's Mike clay Pittsburgh faced more men in the box in 2018 than they did in 2017 Connor was even pretty good as a receiver Which is lavy on Bell's main differentiator at the position Connor didn't see the type of volume that lavy on Bell did but he averaged nine yards per reception and seven yards per target Bell has had just one NFL season with nine or more yards per reception And he's had just one season with seven yards per target how on this planet earth Are we saying lavy on Bell's absence is the reason the Steelers didn't make the playoffs how? James Connor literally outperformed Bell this year from an efficiency standpoint The Steelers just happened to be more of a past heavy team because passing is more efficient than rushing and Pittsburgh's yards per Play didn't change as a result Are you blaming the season on lavy on Bell not being there because Steven Ridley had a costly fumble against the Saints and Bell Would have never fumbled in that situation Well first off if you're gonna compare only the bad plays by a stealer running back to lavy on Bell You can't ignore the good ones. That's not how it works You want to know what killed the Steelers this year that play did but not the result of the play the ignorant play call itself It's a third and two in a must-win game with your team and opponents territory with a four-point lead And instead of letting your Hall of Fame quarterback drop back to pass You hand the ball off against a stacked box to your third string running back who has a history with fumbling problems That's like me handing my five-month-old daughter a glass cup while she's sitting in her high chair and expecting her not to break it You want to know what killed the Steelers this year? Chris Boswell killed the Steelers Number fires expected points model says that Boswell cost the Steelers over 16 points versus an average kicker this year The Steelers could have easily been an 11 and 5 team this season if Chris Boswell just makes kicks that he's made over his career You want to know what killed the Steelers this year? Horrific coaching Ben Rothesberger crushed the Raiders defense in Oakland during their week 14 game But the Steelers mismanages coming back to the game and they lost as a result And then there's defensive coordinator Keith Butler's tendency to just not even give a you-know-what about matchups It's his defense and he'll run his scheme regardless of opponent and because of that You get linebackers on Keenan Allen and Keenan Allen goes off against you for 14 catches for 148 yards You know what else killed the Steelers this year? Laziness with the football One of the most obnoxious quotes of the entire season was from Xavier Grimble You remember that Denver game where Grimble was about to score But he fumbled the ball at the inch line through the end zone after the game Grimble said quote I would have scored had I held on to the ball. I wanted to run right through him I was probably too aggressive. You were probably too aggressive. No, you were absolutely too aggressive When you have a touchdown you walk into the end zone You don't invite contact because you're a tough football player who wants to run through another human being You can look back at nearly all of Pittsburgh's losses this year and find multiple plays that an average team would make that Pittsburgh Didn't Pittsburgh season wasn't lost because of a running back It was lost because of a whole multitude of reasons and Laveon Bell's absence is one of the things that honestly did not matter And what's funny is that if Baker mayfield converts that fourth down against Baltimore Or if Chris Boswell just makes one of those field goals Or if the Steelers just play Ben Rothesberger earlier in the second half against Oakland Or if the Steelers don't give up a special teams touched under the Chargers Or if they don't commit a pass interference on fourth down against the Saints if just one of those things happened We wouldn't even be talking about this. No one would be talking about Laveon Bell's impact on this team Antonio Brown might have even played against Cincinnati, but this is the NFL in football It's a complex game where many many things can go wrong in a given season to pinpoint one singular thing and say That's why this team failed when we're looking at a 16 game sample. That's disingenuous. That's lazy That's oversimplifying things if you want a firm answer with most things NFL related it lives in the gray area