If you’ve followed Steelers Depot, and the Pittsburgh Steelers for a while, you are well aware of the team’s issues in scoring on opening offensive drives. So far in 2025, things have been much stronger.
Today I will look at touchdown, field goal, and overall scoring rates. Included will be 2024 and 2025 to get a gauge of the improvements so far.
First, here are touchdown and field goal scoring rates for offenses on opening drives this season across the NFL:
Here we see that Pittsburgh is one of the few offenses to land above the mean in each. Their 50-percent touchdown rate ties for third-best in the NFL. In 2024, the Steelers offense didn’t score an opening-drive touchdown all year. Through seven games, the 2025 Pittsburgh offense already has three opening drive TDs (T-third most).
Add on two FGs on opening drives, for a 33.3-percent field goal rate. This is tied for eighth-best. Combining touchdowns and field goals, we get an overall scoring rate of 83.3-percent for the 2025 Steelers offense, tying for second-best in the NFL. Very nice indeed.
Now that we have that laid out, let’s see how the 2024 season panned out in comparison. Here are 2024 versus 2025 opening drive scoring rates:
On the x-axis of the visual, we see the aforementioned 83.3-percent opening drive scoring rate. 2024’s result was a bit below average. But this relied solely on the leg of K Chris Boswell, who had six opening drive field goals (second-most) last season. After having no opening-drive touchdowns since 2023, it’s very encouraging to see the Steelers offense starting faster much more consistently in 2025 thus far.
More often than not, Pittsburgh has won when they score touchdowns on opening drives. In the opener and Week Three, the Steelers offense had opening-drive touchdowns against the Jets and Patriots. Pittsburgh’s third opening-drive touchdown of 2025 came last week, but the team derailed in other ways after getting up 10-0 early.
Things were looking very bright at that point of the game, like the Pittsburgh Steelers were going to handle a game they should have won (at least on paper). NFL teams are too good not to capitalize on opportunities like the Steelers had against Cincinnati. A win could have padded a bigger cushion in Pittsburgh’s AFC North lead.
Moving forward, hopefully the Steelers offense continues to start fast. But stout defense should be a prime goal starting this Sunday against Green Bay. It would most likely have led to a win last week, and QB Aaron Rodgers certainly wouldn’t mind a win against his former team.
