Aaron Rodgers looks like he is seeing ghosts and is afraid to take hits. The apex of its apparency was on the overturned completion to Jonnu Smith in the second quarter. Rodgers felt pressure coming form his right side that wasn't there, and sailed his pass to Smith while throwing off his back foot to avoid non-existent pressure, subsequently dropping his elbow and sailing the pass. On third-and-10, Rodgers checked down to Kenneth Gainwell well before he had to and the Steelers settled for a field goal attempt. I could provide other examples throughout the game where Rodgers didn't look like he wanted to take hits. And his desire to want to check down quickly has been evident with this offense over the last three games. And everybody in their offense is suffering because of it.
As many of you know, I've been lamenting for over a decade now that the Steelers don't commit to the run game or play from under center as much as they need to to have chance at competing for championships. The lack of commitment has made for herky/jerky offenses that are inconsistent, don't start fast, can't close out games to keep the defense off of the field, and leaves them susceptible to losing to very bad teams. On Sunday, I had the TV set to split the three, four PM games.
Last week, I wrote about what a championship offense ideally looks like and how I see that in the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks took a 31-7 lead at halftime last week. This week, they were up 35-0 in the second quarter. Sam Darnold finished the day with a very Ben Roethlisberger early in his career-like 10-12 for 178 yards. Darnold and the Seahawks didn't need to throw the ball all over creation to put up 44 points on Sunday.