Broncos pass protection vs Steelers

Counting plays that were negated by penalty, the Broncos had 51 passing plays against the Steelers. I watched every single one on the All-22 and have determined whether our QB was pressured (my assessment), whether he was hit, when he was sacked and who was to blame when he was pressured. These are included in the table below. There where some plays where the whole OL was at fault.

Our Qb was pressured on 24 of the 51 passing plays - 47 percent. He was hit on 19 of those - 37 percent and sacked on seven - 14 percent.

From a blame perspective here is the tally sheet:

Honestly it seemed like Elijah Wilkinson was getting beaten on every passing play, but it wasn’t that bad. Still, I would like to see what Demar Dotson can do.

Some of the time the pressure was caused by a bad play call. One example of this was the 3rd and 20 from the PIT 40 with 4:49 to go in the second quarter. Shurmur calls a play-action fake pass in this situation that has Dalton Risner pull and asks our rookie center Lloyd Cushenberry to reach the backside 4-technique.

Generally you don’t call a play-action fake on 3rd and really long. On this play pressure from #97, the 4-technique, leads to an incompletion and a (missed) 58-yard FG attempt. A small gain here makes this a much more makeable FG attempt. I honestly would have preferred running the ball here. The blocking looks like this might have gained 5-8 yards. There is a huge difference in accuracy between a 50 or even 53-yard FG attempt and a 58 yard attempt historically. That three points would have made a big difference at the end of the game (of course so would not giving up a safety).