After a strong Week 1 performance, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ passing game came back down to earth in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks. QB Aaron Rodgers completed just 18-33 passes for 207 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions, one coming in the end zone on a ball that WR Calvin Austin III tipped.
Despite the lack of passing game success and Rodgers’ apparent frustration at times, he said the Steelers’ offense just has to refocus next week.
“It’s Week 2, come on now. It’s Week 2,” Rodgers responded when asked if things are starting to get “a little frustrating.”
“It’s good for us. Last week, probably, there were some people who were feeling pretty good because everybody outside the building was talking about how great we were on offense and 34 points. That’s the league. You can’t ride the highs and ride the lows. You gotta refocus every single week and be a professional. It starts with the practice and the preparation. Get a chance to reset, take a look at what we did last week, what worked, what didn’t work, from the preparation standpoint, do better next week,” Rodgers said in his postgame press conference via the team’s YouTube channel.
The Steelers weren’t going to go 18-0, and while the offense struggled today, it’s not going to define the season. One bad game shouldn’t be enough for there to be clear frustration. Teams have bad games, and today was a particularly bad one for the Steelers. The team didn’t impress in all three phases, but there was a clear regression in the passing game.
The Seahawks, despite being banged up in the secondary, were able to negate many receiver routes. It didn’t help that the Steelers weren’t scheming players open as well as they did last week. The Steelers have to go back, analyze how they prepared, and find a way to be better. It’s only two games, and we don’t really know what this offense is going to be yet. After Week 1, they looked like a group that could be one of the better units in the league.
After Week 2, the offense seems to be a largely unknown, unpredictable unit. But it’s far too early to panic, and analyzing what went wrong should hopefully lead to a better output in Week 3. Rodgers is a veteran who’s been in this situation before, and even though not much went right, it’s just a bump in the road during a long season. The key is figuring out how to get back on track and making sure poor performances don’t become habitual.
That works for all sides of the ball, not just the offense. It was another poor defensive performance, with the Steelers allowing 30+ points again. Though, even of Seattle’s 31 points came from a special teams gaffe by Kaleb Johnson, leading to a Seahawks touchdown. However, the Steelers won’t win many games if they score 17 points and lose the turnover battle. The team needs to assess how to improve its preparation to get back on track this season.
