RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Yahoo Sports — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 1 sources
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA - AUGUST 13: Drew Allar #16 of the Pittsburgh Steelers celebrates after rushing for a touchdown in the second half against the Green Bay Packers at Acrisure Stadium on August 13, 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Just a few days ago, the Pittsburgh Steelers kicked off their 2026 season with an impressively lopsided 28-9 victory over the Green Bay Packers. While we must acknowledge that neither team featured its star players, nor the type of playcalling we can expect once the games start to count for real, it’s also hard to introduce yourself to a new fanbase in a more impressive fashion than Mike McCarthy and his staff did on Thursday night.
This is going to be quite a meaty post with several clips to share and examine, so let’s not beat around the bush. The following are highlights and lowlights of my impressions from the game. If any of these clips inspire some curiosity, or if you have any insights to add to the conversation, remember to get down in the comments section and join the conversation.
Offensive line hiccups
There’s going to be a lot of positives we’ll look at from this game, so let’s start off with a dose of negativity before we wash things down with what went well.
The Steelers offensive line got off to a tough start on Thursday before settling in once both teams’ reserves took over. Collectively, the Steelers allowed 10 pressures and 3 sacks in pass protection. Four of those pressures were at the hands of the starting lineup — Troy Fautanu (2), Mason McCormick (1), and Dylan Cook (1) — and a fifth pressure was credited to running back Travis Homer, who started the game with both Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle in street clothes for this game. The rushing attack managed just 2.7 yards per carry. And Fautanu was tagged for both a false start penalty and an offensive holding call.
It certainly wasn’t a pristine showing for the unit.
If you’re looking for reasons to soften that showing, there are explanations/excuses that could be made. For starters, the 10 pressures sound worse than it was because on a couple of plays, multiple pressures were allowed, meaning it wasn’t 10 plays that resulted in pressure, just a few really bad snaps. There is also the bit about Fautanu, McCormick, and Cook all flipping to the opposite side from where they played in 2025. A few bumps and bruises were to be expected. And perhaps most important to remember each year: this was the first preseason game of the year. Preseason games exist to ramp up for the season physically and to iron out mental mistakes. The Steelers by no means should be satisfied with this performance, but these issues will matter much more if they linger into the first month of the season. Still, it’s better to make these mistakes now while there is still time to adjust.
Here are the three sacks Pittsburgh allowed in the game:
This first sack is a comedy of errors, a true team sack. Fautanu and Homer are the two main culprits on the play, but aren’t all that goes wrong here.
We’ll start with Fautanu, who isn’t able to get deep enough quickly enough. His defender is out wide of tight end Darnell Washington, who himself is running a route. Fautaun kicks off, but doesn’t get enough depth for how wide and fast the Packers edge player is. Fautanu’s hips flip to the point that his outside hip is parallel with the quarterback, never a good sign. He doesn’t have enough power from this position to fully displace the pass rusher off his path to the quarterback, but to Fautanu’s credit, he is able to widen the rush enough that Mason Rudolph had a chance to climb and slide out to his left if there hadn’t also been other failures in the Steelers’ pass protection.
Homer is the second biggest culprit on this play. He isn’t in a good base when he meets the blitzing linebacker and is immediately rocked back onto his heels. Unfortunately, he gets driven back at the exact moment that Rudolph tries to climb the pocket, and Homer ends up right in his quarterback’s lap. This sends Homer further off balance and causes Rudolph to pull the ball down and awkwardly try to shuffle his feet with no space to move. This is only worsened when a Packer (55) coming on a delayed stunt violently throws himself into this cluster, causing Rudolph to further stumble and lose all chance of regaining his feet to reset his throw.
I’m not positive of their blocking assignments, so I won’t critique either of the guards here, but I will note that the stunting Packer (55) goes unpicked up. Intuitively, I would assume Spencer Anderson (74) would have been the best to pick that up, be he first double-teams a defender with Zach Fraizer, and then picks up the defender who initially engaged with McCormick before countering inside.
Likewise, I won’t be critical of Rudolph here because I don’t know how he’s coached to go through his progressions on this play. Watching it in the All-22 view, it seems obvious that Germie Bernard gets open fairly quickly in the middle, right in the space vacated by the blitzing linebackers, but Rudolph appears to be reading the left side of the field first on this play. That could be what the play called for, and the pass blocking by Homer speeds his process up and makes the pocket messy quickly. Just a bad play that I’m sure will be discussed in this week’s meetings.
Sack number two isn’t too complicated. Cook simple gets beat here. The routes are too long developing to get away with how quickly Cook gives this pressure up. Again, the two players who maybe are open enough to try a quick throw — Homer in the flat and Roman Wilson running a hook route that would definitely have been contested — were on the opposite side of the field from where Rudolph’s progression starts, so it’s hard to pin this on the quarterback without knowing exactly what was called. The Steelers did have the numbers advantage on the right half of the field, so it makes sense that R...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.