The Pittsburgh Steelers are the first team in the past decade to go more 50 or more consecutive games without producing at least 400 yards of offense in a single game. They are currently at 56 games and have been held to under 300 yards in five of eight games so far this season.
They had one of their best games last Thursday, however, producing 326 total yards of offense, including 166 rushing yards, and that’s got some optimistic about the corner slowly turning. Or perhaps not so slow. Former Steelers CB Bryant McFadden predicts that that streak will come to an end Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.
“We will surpass 400 yards total offense”, he said during a series of predictions on his All Things Covered podcast, co-hosted with Steelers CB Patrick Peterson. “Kenny Pickett, George Pickens, Jaylen [Warren], Diontae [Johnson]”, he listed, before losing his train of thought while campaigning for more targets for rookie TE Darnell Washington.
Obviously, his point is that this offense has a lot of talent and actually has been showing it more lately. Warren, the second-year running back, topped 100 yards from scrimmage in a game for the first time in his career last week, including a career-high 88 rushing. Johnson has 85 receiving yards per game over the past three weeks and last Thursday recorded his first touchdown since 2021.
Of course, we know the Pickens story at the moment with a couple of rough weeks in terms of finishing plays, but those issues should be easily correctable, and he is always a threat. There’s no reason to assume he can’t go off for 100-plus yards any week.
As for the Packers, they just won their first game since Sept. 24, a commanding 20-3 win over a Los Angeles Rams team starting a backup quarterback. They netted just 187 total yards of offense with only 10 first downs, averaging 3.4 yards per play. They just couldn’t get anything going.
But the Packers are still not a very good defense. They entered the week ranked 20th in points allowed and 22nd in yards allowed. They have allowed 400-plus yards of offense to an opponent twice this season, as have 18 other teams so far, so it’s certainly doable.
Of course, the Steelers would still need 250-plus passing yards even if they can hit 150 rushing yards again. While that’s far from a sure thing, the Packers have allowed 200-plus yards on the ground twice—unsurprisingly, in the two games in which they allowed 400-plus total yards.
Entering yesterday, the Steelers were the only team with an active streak of even 15 games without hitting 400 total yards of offense. The Packers and New England Patriots, however, both hit 15 on Sunday, so now they are the only team with an active streak of more than 15 games.
McFadden thinks next week is the week that is finally snapped—and the first 400-plus-yard game for offensive coordinator Matt Canada. What do you think? Green Bay may be without NT Kenny Clark, and QB Kenny Pickett should be in better shape after being able to rest his ribs.
