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5 for Friday: Rodgers a good fit with Smith

Everyone saw last season how aggressive Russell Wilson was with deep shots down the sideline, but one of the quarterbacks who has been even more aggressive with those throws is new Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

From 2019 to 2022 when Rodgers was operating Matt LaFleur's offense in Green Bay's offense, he attempted 409 deep throws, the second-most in the league. Tom Brady was No. 1 at 458. Wilson was third with 367.

That's telling because LaFleur's offensive scheme has a lot of the tendencies that line up with that of Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.

Smith served as tight ends coach in Tennessee under LaFleur before he was hired as Green Bay's head coach. And while the offenses aren't identical, there are plenty of concepts that both utilize and stress.

One is play-action.

In Smith's first season as offensive coordinator in 2024, the Steelers utilized play-action on 27.6 percent of their drop backs. That was 11th-most in the NFL.

In the four previous seasons, the highest the Steelers ranked in play-action usage was 27th.

In 2022, Rodgers final season in LaFleur's offense – and not one of his better overall seasons – he had a passer rating of 104.8 when utilizing play-action, throwing 11 touchdown passes and three interceptions. His passer rating on non-play-action passes was 86.5.

As he did last season, Smith will develop his offense around the skillset of his quarterback.

Much was made late in the season about the Steelers quarterbacks not having the ability to audible at the line of scrimmage.

That's not necessarily a true statement. While they couldn't necessarily change the play completely at the line of scrimmage, they also didn't have just one play to run when they stepped to the line. There are checks in every play.

And Rodgers is one of the best in the history of the game in reading defenses.

"I'm going to learn the offense, and Arthur and I are going to talk a bunch this summer. If there's things that I like that I'd like to see in the offense, Arthur I'm sure is going to put it in," Rodgers said. "He knows how to call a game. I know how to get us in the right spot based on what's called. There's two or three plays called in the huddle sometimes. My job is to get us in the right play."

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