Sunday's come-from-behind Week 1 Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the New York Jets was our first glimpse at what the Arthur Smith/ Aaron Rodgers marriage will look like. Needless to say, the results were overwhelmingly positive for the Pittsburgh Steelers . In his return to MetLife Stadium, the 41-year old tossed four touchdown passes en route to a 34-point offensive explosion, as he finished with the 9th-best passing success rate on opening weekend. The revenge game narrative made for some fun headlines, but the most encouraging part of his debut in the black and gold was how effective they were when utilizing play-action.
Seeing as it's been so long since this team has been successful with this approach, even a one-week sample size is worth getting moderately excited about. Three of his touchdown passes came off play fakes, tying his highest single-game total since 2016, according to NGS . How Smith and Rodgers would blend their football ideologies was one of this organization's biggest questions coming into the season.
In their first dance with one another, the early-down philosophy seemed in line with Smith's preferred style of play, featuring lots of under-center, heavy personnel with condensed split looks. In obvious passing situations, it looked more like the spread and shred approach that Rodgers prefers, with him matchup hunting and delivering quick strikes on command. Both gentlemen deserve kudos for their collaboration in this one.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and wide receiver Ben Skowronek celebrate a touchdown against the New York Jets on Sept. 7, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Even after coming off the Achilles injury, Rodgers found his groove on the move as the 2024 season moved along. It didn't take them long to dial up a bootleg in a critical moment, as he found Ben Skowronek wide open on a crossing route for the team's first points of the season. Smith is a big fan of the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach and will not hesitate to repeat play calls. After the special teams unit granted them excellent field position, he dialed up the exact same flood concept, only this time a new pass catcher sprung free. Calvin Austin III inserted into the C-gap to fake stalk block the support player before zooming past him vertically on the corner route. This was a nice wrinkle to a popular leaguewide trend.
Tougher challenges lie ahead, starting with Sunday's heavyweight bout with the Seattle Seahawks . The mastermind behind their defensive operation is Mike Macdonald , who is no stranger to AFC North ball, given that he's a branch off the Baltimore Ravens coaching tree. It's not as if this wunderkind burst onto the scene and abandoned his roots entirely in an effort to reinvent the wheel per se. Instead, he modernized his approach to counter the easy buttons that offensive coordinators have begun spamming in recent years. How has he accomplished this? By becoming one of the premier pressure path designers in the game. Even without a true ace up front, his squad finished top-10 in both pressure and sack rate a year ago.
Kyle Shanahan, another prominent play-action-to-boot truther, found this out the hard way last weekend. One of the downsides of playing in the condensed world is that it brings more bodies to the party near the line of scrimmage, with more threats to account for in pass protection. For years now, Macdonald has proven that he's willing to send anyone from anywhere. This time, it's the safety knifing through the A-gap untouched to greet the quarterback as soon as he finishes the fake. More and more teams are looking to flip the script on early downs, blitzing to spark negative plays, which then allows the defense to play more spot drop soft coverage in third and long situations.
On the Seahawks' first defensive possession of the second half, Macdonald once again turned up the heat as the Niners got into their 13 personnel grouping. This time they're bringing an off-ball backer through the B-gap and while the tailback is clever enough to abort the fake and cut him, the quarterback is still clearly unsettled in the pocket. You can tell this because he's uncomfortable because of the extra shuffle at the top of his drop and because he's set too deep in the pocket; there's also pressure off the edge ready to engulf him. Seattle is playing a variation of quarters coverage on the back end, with their linebacker doing a nice job of getting depth while playing with vision in the backfield, dropping underneath the dig route on the dagger concept. The ball is late and ultimately intercepted.
San Francisco was able to steal this game in the final moments, partially due to some favorable luck, but also some savviness from their quarterback. He sees the same pre-snap look from the first-quarter sack, with the safety rolling down towards the line of scrimmage. Once the tight end motions to the strong side and no one follows him, he promptly alerts the play call to get into a perimeter run away from the blitz. You will notice the slot cornerback is bailing out to play his quarter technique, and as a result, there's a stampede of blockers out in front to clear the way for a first down. Macdonald's club wants to live in the roll-based world with a bunch of disguises, but one obvious way to counter those looks is to pound the rock versus those lighter boxes.
So, what happens if Aaron Rodgers has to turn back the clock and dice this defense up from the gun? Macdonald got the better of him in their matchup last season, holding the veteran to just 4.7 yards per attempt with the additional help of some ugly drops. There's no one better right now in the sim pressure world because it's not as simple as dissecting who is actually rushing, but he's also willing to drop any player in coverage. On this play below, the Seahawks are showing cover-0 pre-snap, but knowing Rodgers' affinity for throwing slants, they end up dropping both of their defensive tackles out into the underneath area where his hot read would be. This ends up being a game-swinging play that essentially ended the Jets' season. Even if he would have spotted the dropper, the nickel defender was full speed ahead off the edge unblocked because of the slide to the opposite side.
Having said all of that, this isn't a defense that's impenetrable by any means, and Rodgers will get his chance for some revenge for the second straight week. The Steelers will have a couple of favorable one-on-one matchups arise throughout the contest that are worth exploring, but Seattle is going to make it difficult on them by trying to make them play left-handed. Pittsburgh just needs to be ready to pivot at a moment's notice before things go south. As alluded to earlier, an improved run game could be a great neutralizer in this one, but even if things stall out in the trenches, getting the running backs involved through the air would be beneficial given all the space underneath in this zone-centric defense.
Sunday will be a fun battle of the minds at Acrisure Stadium. If Pittsburgh's new tandem can come out on top again, optimism around their ceiling will continue to grow.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Can Arthur Smith & Aaron Rodgers Out-Duel Mike Macdonald for Steelers vs. Seahawks?
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