Steelers Now
Sunday’s come-from-behind Week 1 Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the New York Jets was our first glimpse at what the Arthur Smith/Aaron Rodgers marriage will look like. Needless to say, the results were overwhelmingly positive for the Pittsburgh Steelers. In his return to MetLife Stadium, the 41-year old tossed four touchdown passes en route to a 34-point offensive explosion, as he finished with the 9th-best passing success rate on opening weekend. The revenge game narrative made for some fun headlines, but the most encouraging part of his debut in the black and gold was how effective they were when utilizing play-action.
Seeing as it’s been so long since this team has been successful with this approach, even a one-week sample size is worth getting moderately excited about. Three of his touchdown passes came off play fakes, tying his highest single-game total since 2016, according to NGS. How Smith and Rodgers would blend their football ideologies was one of this organization’s biggest questions coming into the season.
In their first dance with one another, the early-down philosophy seemed in line with Smith’s preferred style of play, featuring lots of under-center, heavy personnel with condensed split looks. In obvious passing situations, it looked more like the spread and shred approach that Rodgers prefers, with him matchup hunting and delivering quick strikes on command. Both gentlemen deserve kudos for their collaboration in this one.
Even after coming off the Achilles injury, Rodgers found his groove on the move as the 2024 season moved along. It didn’t take them long to dial up a bootleg in a critical moment, as he found Ben Skowronek wide open on a crossing route for the team’s first points of the season. Smith is a big fan of the “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” approach and will not hesitate to repeat play calls. After the special teams unit granted them excellent field position, he dialed up the exact same flood concept, only this time a new pass catcher sprung free. Calvin Austin III inserted into the C-gap to fake stalk block the support player before zooming past him vertically on the corner route. This was a nice wrinkle to a popular leaguewide trend.
They hit the Corner on the second Touchdown
Great design and execution off Play Action! pic.twitter.com/P6pE3skxd2
— Coach Dan Casey (@CoachDanCasey) September 10, 2025
Tougher challenges lie ahead, starting with Sunday’s heavyweight bout with the Seattle Seahawks. The mastermind behind their defensive operation is Mike Macdonald, who is no stranger to AFC North ball, given that he’s a branch off the Baltimore Ravens coaching tree. It’s not as if this wunderkind burst onto the scene and abandoned his roots entirely in an effort to reinvent the wheel per se. Instead, he modernized his approach to counter the easy buttons that offensive coordinators have begun spamming in recent years. How has he accomplished this? By becoming one of the premier pressure path designers in the game. Even without a true...
