The Pittsburgh Steelers allowed the Week 4 curse to get the best of them, dropping a game where they made multiple game-changing mistakes and just couldn’t do enough to overcome them all. Falling behind 17-0, they had the ball with a chance for a field goal to tie or a touchdown to win just outside of two minutes. But things weren’t in the cards as the Steelers lose their first game of the 2024 season.

So without further ado, here are some of the numbers involved in the Steelers Week 4 loss to the Colts.

-2

The Steelers flirted with fate last week when they came in on the wrong side of the turnover margin. While they pulled off the victory previously, having two turnovers and no takeaways proved to be just too much to overcome and left the Steelers short on their comeback. Although neither turnover led to points by the Colts, they took points off the board for the Steelers as one occurred at the Colts 3-yard line.

17

The Steelers had been getting off to slow starts this season, particularly on offense. But it was a team effort in Week 4. The Steelers gave up a 70-yard touchdown drive to open the game and the offense ended up punting the ball on their first possession. With the Steelers not successfully moving the ball on their first three drives, the Colts put up 17 straight points with two touchdowns and a field goal to start the game. Digging themselves this much of a hole ended up being too much to overcome.

19

Although rushing for 122 team yards doesn’t look that bad on paper, when the quarterback is the leading rusher on the team with 55 yards it puts it a little bit more in perspective. Although Najee Harris had the most carries of any player on the Steelers with 13, he only had 19 yards rushing for the game for a 1.5 yards per carry average.

404

I’m putting this number here because it wasn’t long ago I was told how important this was. The Steelers offense put up over 400 yards on the day with 122 rushing yards and 282 net passing yards. Unfortunately, it’s not the yards gained that counts towards the win.

239

The Pittsburgh Steelers just didn’t get the job done in the first half. Only putting three points on the board was bad enough, but the defense gave up 239 yards and 17 points in the first half of the game. Despite the Steelers having the advantage in the second half to give them more yardage overall, it wasn’t enough.

113

There were a lot of ups and downs in this game with players putting together a performance that had both good and bad moments. George Pickens went over 100 yards receiving for the first time this season as he had 113 receiving yards from seven catches on 11 targets. But even though Pickens had the numbers, he also fumbled the football inside the Colts 5-yard line on the Steelers most promising drive of the first half.

53%

Although the Steelers came back to have a respectable 46% conversion rate on third down, their biggest issue was how much they surrendered on third down on defense. The Colts converted 8 of 15 third down attempts for a 53% down efficiency rate. Additionally, a number of these conversions came with a Colts needing 7 yards or more for the first down.

8 of 11

The Pittsburgh Steelers were generally successful moving the football on Sunday offensively. Of their 11 possessions, eight of them crossed midfield, But just like the previous weeks, the Steelers weren’t efficient enough with those drives. Of those eight drives, three ended in a touchdown, one a field goal, two ended in fumbles and two others ended in punts.

58

It might not have seen significant at the time, but on the Steelers first possession they passed up an opportunity to put points on the board to answer the Colts opening touchdown. Instead of attempting a 58-yard field goal from Chris Boswell, Steelers chose to punt the ball down to the 14-yard line. Unfortunately, it only took the Colts to one play to get the ball out beyond the 40-yard line near the spot where they would have taken over if the Steelers missed the field goal attempt. So ultimately, attempting to pin the Colts deep instead of attempting the long field goal did not have the desired effect.

0

As is the case, the most important number is how many tally marks the Steelers get to put in the win column. Unfortunately, this weekend ends in a loss. Although the Steelers fought hard to come back, the defense gave up 10 points in the fourth quarter and the offense couldn’t overcome a botched snap in order to complete the come back.

So there are some numbers to help put the Steelers Week 4 loss in perspective. The low start on both sides of the ball ended up being more than the they could overcome.

So what numbers from Sunday’s game stand out to you? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.