Aaron Rodgers impressed a lot of people in his Pittsburgh Steelers debut on Sunday, including ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
Rodgers looked like his former MVP self against the New York Jets, leading the Steelers to a 34-32 win at MetLife Stadium. Rodgers completed 22-of-30 passes for 244 yards and was responsible for all four of Pittsburgh’s touchdowns in the game.
On Monday morning, Stephen A. heaped praise on the Steelers quarterback and was downright giddy about what he saw from Rodgers.
“The bad man showed up, you understand?” Smith said of Rodgers. “Ya’ll must’ve forgot, this is what I tried to say. And the man showed up and handled his business yesterday. I was very, very pleased with Aaron Rodgers, no doubt about it. No question he showed up and showed out, OK?”
Smith also went on to praise Rodgers’ pass-catchers, including tight ends Pat Freiermuth and Jonnu Smith, and wide receiver DK Metcalf.
Metcalf led all Steelers pass-catchers with 83 yards, Freiermuth chipped in three catches for 28 yards and Smith scored a touchdown on one of his five catches. We also can’t forget about Calvin Austin, who finished second with 70 receiving yards.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Smith, who rightly pointed out concerns about the Steelers’ defense and rushing attack.
While Pittsburgh’s unit made the stop it needed to in order to win the game against the Jets, the defense also gave up almost 400 yards of total offense and Justin Fields and Breece Hall both had their way with Pittsburgh’s unit.
The rushing attack only mustered up 53 yards on 20 carries, which is just not going to cut it for this offense.
The offensive line is arguably the most significant concern.
Rodgers was sacked four times, with three of those credited to Broderick Jones, who struggled mightily in his first game as the full-time left tackle.
The Steelers will have to sort all that out moving forward, but the good news is they appear to have fixed their problem at quarterback.
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