Steelers Read & React: Week 1 reaction meter

INTRO

Reaction Meter

In this exercise, Ryan and Ryland will react to some of the narratives that have emerged following the Steelers’ victory over the Jets. R&R will be presented with narratives about the Steelers’ performance, and will respond with whether they’re more encouraged or discouraged following Week 1.

Aaron Rodgers might still have it

RB: Encouraged: 60% Discouraged: 40%

I’ve written extensively about this already this week, so I won’t bother repeating too much. The basics: Aaron Rodgers looked great in Week 1! But the Steelers’ current method of offensive success does not look like a sustainable model.

Don’t get me wrong. Rodgers made the right reads, had some impressive throws, and his pre-snap ability is a plus for the offense. But he’s 41 years old with clearly diminished mobility. He’s not going to carry this offense all year, and if the run game continues to struggle and the offensive line keeps allowing quarterback hits, Rodgers’ success – and health – is very much in question.

Plus, while it’s definitely not a negative, Rodgers benefited a lot from schemed-open receivers (play action!) and yards after catch. He somehow had under 100 air yards on Sunday.

It was a great debut. In my mind, it’s already clear that Rodgers is an upgrade over Russell Wilson from last year. But his Sunday performance, especially considering it’s just Week 1, is not enough to be making any definitive statements.

RP: Encouraged: 60% Discouraged: 40%

Ryland and I are in lockstep with this one. There were a lot of fun moments for the offense on Sunday, and most of that can be attributed to Rodgers. The Steelers scored their first opening drive touchdown since 2023, which was also the first opening drive touchdown Pittsburgh has scored in Week 1 since 2008.

One area I want to hone in on from Ryland’s answer is Rodgers’ execution on play action.

Shortly after Rodgers signed with the Steelers in early June, R&R did a deep dive on Rodgers’ film from 2024. In that article, I extensively analyzed Rodgers’ recent history with play-action and parsed out some of the underlying numbers and trends in his play.

While I encourage you to go back and refresh on what we laid out in that article, we can summarize the main takeaways here:

• Rodgers benefited greatly from play action during his MVP seasons in 2020 and 2021, which pairs well with Arthur Smith’s affinity for play action.
• Rodgers ran a similar amount of play action in 2024, but was significantly less efficient despite facing the sixth-lowest rate of pressure (23.8%) in the league on those plays.
• Rodgers struggled to create explosive plays from play action, attempting only eight passes that traveled more than 20 yards downfield and completing just three of those passes.

So, how did that shake out in Week 1?

To put it simply: better than with the Jets, but pretty in line with what we spelled out back in June. Rodgers’ yards...