FOXBOROUGH - Over the last couple of seasons, no quarterback has wanted to get the ball out of their hand faster than Aaron Rodgers. In fact, in 2025 - his first with the Steelers - Rodgers’ average time to throw was 2.46 seconds, the quickest in the league. Not only that, but because the now-42-year-old signal caller never wanted to get hit, his aDOT (average depth of target) was also the lowest (6.6).
Those changed pretty dramatically in a season-opening win over the Falcons. Under new head coach Mike McCarthy, who, of course, coached Rodgers for years in Green Bay, the veteran signal-caller held the ball an average of 2.84 seconds and had an aDOT of 10.1 yards. Is he a changed man?
“They took a couple shots,” Milton Williams observed. “But he’s trying to do whatever, whatever is open, whatever is gonna help them move the chains. You know, deep pass, short pass. He can do it all. We just gotta be on the same page. Try to take away some of those reads, and affect the quarterback to help create turnovers.”
I did wonder if some of Rodgers’ willingness to stand in there may have had to do with the opponent. The film backed up that premise. The Falcons were without their top two edge rushers and relied on recently signed ZaDarius Smith to provide some juice in that department. He did, with a pair of sacks, but those were the only two times Rodgers went down. Pressure was at a minimum.
Meanwhile, the Pats continued to lean into being a blitz-heavy team in the opener at Seattle. They became more reliant on that pressure-based philosophy late last season and then in the postseason. But attacking Rodgers is easier said than done. For starters, he’s seen it all, which makes fooling him nearly impossible.
“It's difficult, and I think that you can start to, you know, the risk outweighs the benefits - where you're trying to disguise and show one thing or show a coverage, and ultimately you're out of position,” Mike Vrabel said. “He's seen every look that you could possibly give him.”
“We all know just how really good he is as far as seeing every coverage,” Kevin Byard said. “He's seeing everything.”
If the Pats can find success in heating Rodgers up, the ball will come out quicker and, in theory, limit shot plays. But then the defense could find themselves in a spot where it’s death by a thousand paper cuts, especially with how quickly Rodgers can and will get the ball out of his hands.
“A lot of times he's throwing it faster than you can even finish a rush,” Williams said. “So we do our part: try to get into the pocket. If we can't get there in time, try to get a hand up, tip a pass. But we can't control how fast he throws the ball. If he's throwing it quick, you know, all we can do is get our hands up and turn and run out and try to punch a ball out or something like that. But hopefully he don't get the ball out quick and we're good on the back end and they force him to hold it for us to get back there.”
The Pats secondary was certainly up to the challenge against Seattle, not letting Sam Darnold and then Drew Lock carve them up like roast chickens. But Lock, who is no Aaron Rodgers, handled the pressure relatively well (14 of 27 dropbacks), getting sacked just once (Gabe Jacas), and of course, hit the game-winning toss to Jaxon Smith-Njigba against a run blitz. Rodgers isn’t as nimble as Lock, but he still has a little something left to give in that regard.
“He's probably a little slower than he used to be, like in his prime, prime,” Williams said. “But if he got to run, he still can run. So we got to be cognizant of that. He still, if he needs to get it done, he's gonna get it done. He still can make any throw. So you know, we gotta be ready for whatever.”
One other element of Rodgers’ aging game hasn’t changed: he will still play games at the line of scrimmage, testing the opponent’s substitution patterns with his cadence (got the Pats on the first play last year at Gillette) and pre-snap manipulation.
“I think the biggest thing that's kind of like the chess game: he does a really good job of using all the play clock pre-snap to try to get the defense to address themselves to see what we're doing, and he does a really good job of making the defensive line jump offsides,” Byard said. “When that happens, we have to make sure we keep playing because we all know it's going downtown. But no, he's a future Hall of Famer, so I mean we have to give him that respect.”
A year ago, the Mike Tomlin/Arthur Smith-led Steelers beat the Patriots 21-14 in week three. Rodgers fired a pair of TD passes, including one against the blitz, and finished the game 16-of-23 for 139 yards.
ODDS AND ENDS
- TreVeyon Henderson continues to make his way back from the foot/ankle injury that occurred on August 24th. He increased his activity at practice (**full participant per injury report**), and it sounds like he has a real chance to play on Sunday.
- Turnovers remained a hot topic today. The Pats were -3 in Seattle and didn't create a single takeaway.
“Definitely myself (need to) make the plays that I need to make, that I'm supposed to make,” Christian Gonzalez said, referencing the INT he dropped. “I mean, it just comes down to communication, getting us in the right spot, and then capitalizing.”
“If you look at the history of the league, the team that usually gets the most turnovers or wins the turnover differential is the team that usually wins,” Byard said. “For us, I think you can't chase plays. You can't try to go out here and just say you're going to get turnovers and try to magically go make a play that's not for you. I think we have to stay true to the defense, stay true within the scheme.”
To Byard’s point, teams that lost the turnover battle in week one went a combined 0-13.