Much as the Pittsburgh Steelers aspire to have on offense, the San Francisco 49ers do not lack for playmakers. Head coach Mike Tomlin knew that he would have some superstars to prepare for in the likes of TE George Kittle, RB Christian McCaffrey, and WR Deebo Samuel.
While he wasn’t wholly successful in containing those players—McCaffrey in particular—he did acknowledge yesterday that their efforts to keep them bottled up helped to produce the conditions in which WR Brandon Aiyuk flourished.
“Certainly, some of his exploits had to do with our desire to minimize, Kittle and Deebo and Christian, but that’s what makes awesome units challenging”, he told reporters yesterday via the team’s website about Aiyuk’s big game.
Sunday was quite arguably the best game of Aiyuk’s career. At eight receptions for 129 yards and two touchdowns, it is tops in his career in yardage output. While he has scored twice in a game previously, never before did he do so while also going over 100 yards. This was also just his fifth career 100-yard game.
A former first-round draft pick, he has gradually evolved, culminating in a career year last season. He caught 78 passes in 2022 for 1,015 yards, his first 1,000-yard season, with eight touchdowns. All of those numbers are career highs, but he can surpass them this year.
“They’ve got a lot of capable people who are able to rise up and make plays when others garner attention”, Tomlin said of players like Aiyuk. “I don’t think any of that is surprising to us. His evolution, particularly over the latter half of last year, is kind of reflective of that performance. We tip our cap to him. He made a combat, 50/50 catch for a touchdown. He made some other significant plays. He played a really good football game”.
While Aiyuk’s first touchdown was a pitch-and-catch affair on which CB Patrick Peterson slipped in coverage, he had to go up and get the ball in the right corner of the end zone on the second. That is the combat catch to which Tomlin referred.
His 129 receiving yards would have ranked as the fourth-most that the Steelers gave up to any player last season. They only allowed three players to score multiple touchdowns in a game. Bafflingly, one of them was former Cincinnati Bengals RB Samaje Perine with a three-touchdown performance receiving.
The secondary was supposed to be better this year, at least on paper. Then again, there was an understanding that there would be growing pains as the new pieces learn to work together. We have hardly seen second-round CB Joey Porter Jr. on the field yet; one would hope that he could make a difference in the near future.
