Analyzing the Steelers preseason win over the Panthers, by the numbers
The Pittsburgh Steelers had their final contest in preparation for the 2025 season where they were victorious over the Carolina Panthers in Week 3 of the preseason. There was plenty to take away from the game on both the positive and negative side, so there is a lot to dissect and tighten up before the regular season kicks off in a little more than two weeks.
So without further ado, here are some of the numbers involved in the Steelers preseason win over the Panthers.
+1
The Steelers did not play a completely clean game in the turnover department as Mason Rudolph had an ugly interception. There was almost more disaster for the Steelers early on as Jaylen Warren put the football on the ground but Roman Wilson was there to recover quickly. With just one turnover on their side, the Steelers had two takeaways to come out +1 in the turnover margin. With both an interception and a fumble recovery, the Steelers turned the two takeaways into 10 points.
13
The sloppiness from this game came in two different departments for the Steelers more than anything else. They were penalties and missed tackles. Although the number of miss tackles will come out at a later time, the Steelers had 13 penalties for 104 yards called against them in the game.
0:12
The Carolina Panthers managed to score their only touchdown of the game with 0:17 remaining in the first half. After a kickoff return to their own 22-yard line, there was 0:12 remaining in the game when the Steelers offense went on the field. After a 53-yard pass from Skyler Thompson to Scotty Miller, Ben Sauls connected for a 38-yard field goal. During the regular season, the Steelers might have just taken a knee with 0:12 remaining and with such a large distance to go, but with three timeouts and it being the preseason, the Steelers took the shot and it paid off.
171
The Steelers struggled to stop the run in their final preseason game as they surrendered 171 rushing yards to the Panthers. While this number looks bad, it’s actually deceptive in more than one way. First, it’s not every day that the team continues to rely so heavily on the run in the game they are trailing, but it’s not overly surprising in the preseason. The Panthers ran 63 total offensive plays with 35 of them being rushes. In all, the Steelers surrendered 4.9 yards per carry for the game. The biggest problem in stopping the run was inconsistency, primarily due to missed tackles.
5.50
While it may look as if the Steelers struggled to run the football Thursday night as they did not reach 100 rushing yards, the Steelers did have a 5.50 yard per attempt average. The Steelers rushed for 99 yards on 18 rushing attempts and were much more efficient running the football than their opponent.
0 for 2
The Steelers only managed to make it into the red zone twice in the game and failed to convert a touchdown either time. In fact, one of their drives had the Steelers get into the red zone multiple times only to get pushed back out by penalties.
+70 on -18
It’s pretty easy to tell this was a preseason game because of some of the anomalies when it comes to the numbers. For example, the Steelers out-gained the Panthers by 70 yards as they had 325 yards of offense to Carolina’s 255 yards. What’s interesting enough is that the Steelers did this on 18 less plays as the Panthers ran 63 offensive plays to the Steelers 45. This led to a large discrepancy in yards per play for the game as Carolina only had 4.0 yards per play while the Steelers had a 7.2 yard average.
0
One particular positive for the Steelers, even though they only ran 27 passing plays, they were not sacked once. In all, the Panthers only had three quarterback hits.
3 for 3
Looking at just the second half, the Steelers only had three possessions. The good news is the Steelers turned all three of those possessions into points, albeit field goals. For the game, the Steelers had eight total possessions with the first two ending in points and the third an interception. The final five possession of the game the Steelers finished each off by putting points on the board.
99
I’m getting very specific with this most important number of them all this week. This comes down to rookie first round draft pick Derrick Harmon. It didn’t matter if the Steelers won or lost this game, but seeing number 99 leave the sidelines on a cart is not what you want to see during the preseason. Although we’re still waiting for official news, it appears that Harmon has escaped a major injury.
So there are some numbers to help put the Steelers Week 3 preseason win in perspective. The Steelers now have less than a week until they will be down to 53 players next Tuesday.
So what numbers from Thursday night’s preseason game stand out to you? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.