Steel City Blitz
Hey Steelers Fans. Welcome to Sunday.
As I do each morning following a game, I take few minutes to collect my thoughts (without the adrenaline immediately after the game) and put them here. Hopefully with a more fair and balanced approach then right after the game. Last night the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 31-25 in the preseason opener for both teams. Let’s get to it.
It’s hard to find fault with two guys who put up 31 points of offense between them. Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson combined had a passer rating above 135. Thompson threw three touchdown passes while Rudolph directed an excellent opening drive going 9 of 10 and a beautiful ‘down the seam’ strike to Darnell Washington. It’s fair to say that despite his performance, Thompson will still get cut in favor of Will Howard. That said, he did more than enough to ensure he will find work somewhere.
Did you notice that the Steelers didn’t have any pre-snap penalties until the fourth quarter? It was part of an overall look I had watching this team last night. Other than Washington’s unsportsmanlike penalty for dunking the ball over the crossbar (such a stupid penalty) the team played very clean.
There were two things that struck me immediately with the offense last night. First was the pace of the unit. They would go about with a normal pace then all of the sudden they’d hurry up to the line and get off a quick snap. Personally, I love this. Any advantage you can get over the defense, you take it. Getting up to the line of scrimmage quickly forces the defense to adjust and fast! The other major thing I noticed was the footwork and handwork of the two quarterbacks.
I tend to believe this is a direct result of Aaron Rodgers’ presence. Both Rudolph and Thompson were very demonstrative with their play-action fakes. They made very deliberate movements to shield the handoff or fake from the defense as well. Rodgers has always thrived on play-action and is one of the all-time best at it. I more than welcome this to Arthur Smith’s offense.
Rookie Kaleb Johnson had eight carries for just 20 yards and frankly, half of those carries resulted in him getting contacted before he even got to the line of scrimmage. The running attack has struggled throughout Training Camp so this wasn’t a huge surprise but there has to be some concern. Recently signed Running Back Lew Nichols found some success late in the game behind the backups but we need to see this earlier in the game.
Apparently Mike Tomlin received ZERO questions in his postgame press conference last night. There were beat writers at the game so I’m very curious as to why there weren’t any questions.
There were a lot of guys who made...
