The Steelers’ defense mauled the offense on the first day in pads. But the offense came looking for payback this morning. Players like WR DK Metcalf made it their mission to correct their issues from the previous day, and they largely accomplished that goal.
“Nobody likes to lose like that,” Metcalf said of the offense’s Wednesday performance via Post-Gazette Sports on YouTube. “Nobody likes to get pushed around the first day of pads. But we took it personal, cleaned up some of our technique stuff, some of our splits. And we put an emphasis in the meeting room yesterday that we were gonna come out here and try to ball.”
There was no debating which unit was the better of the two through the first five practices. Our Alex Kozora even wrote a feature article about the dominance of the defense so far. To be fair, that is what the NFL’s highest-paid defense should look like. The offense was always going to have an uphill battle but needed to show signs of life, and the group got that done in today’s practice.
Kozora called it both Aaron Rodgers and the offense’s best day overall.
The offense still lost Seven Shots 4-3, but it came down to the last snap to decide the day. And the offense showed big improvement in the 11-on-11 team sessions of practice. The Rodgers-Metcalf connection looked especially strong with the two hooking up on multiple scores, including a 55-yard TD over the middle on a crosser.
It’s a Catch-22 at training camp because one unit always looks good at the expense of the other. But if this offense can look good against a star-studded defense, it should be able to excel against almost anybody in the league.
This is just one practice of Rodgers and Co. looking solid. They will need to stack positive days and build off their success, but it’s a good sign that they took enough pride in their game to correct their poor performance from yesterday.
They responded to the challenge.
