Welcome to the terrible take, a daily segment telling Steeler Nation what's on our minds.

I'm Melanie Freelander.

One of my favorite aspects of Twitter on Saturdays is seeing NFL players chime in on NCAA football

games.

Yesterday, Cincinnati Bengal's defensive tackle

DJ Reader questioned the choice by TCU

not to go with the quarterback sneak

in what turned out to be a 31 to 28 point loss to the Kansas State Wildcats.

Three times defensive player of the year, defensive end

J.J. Watt responded with the following.

Quote, quarterback sneak is the single most difficult play to stop for one yard or less without a doubt,

especially when you add pushers from behind into the equation.

We'll never understand taking the ball five plus yards away from the line of scrimmage to try and gain one yard at any level."

The Yale University undergraduate sports analytics group agrees.

They looked at all fourth in one place in the NFL from 1998 to 2015.

On those plays, quarterback sneaks were successful 82.8% of the time.

For comparison, non-quarterback run plays had a conversion rate of just over 63%, and pass plays in that situation had a 62% success rate.

Throughout his career in Pittsburgh, future Hall of Fame quarterback Ben Rothschildsberger had a 95% success rate

when running a quarterback sneak.

And yet the Steelers rarely ran that play

on third or fourth and one yard or less.

Big Ben scored on a quarterback sneak against the Tennessee Titans in November 2021,

...