The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense did some nice things through the air in the team’s 2025 preseason opener. As the headline suggests, I was curious to see how the encouraging scoring production stacked up around the league.
Here’s a visual of total passing touchdowns and total red zone touchdowns across the NFL:
[](https://steelersdepot.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/PITRZ1.jpg)
What jumps out immediately is that Pittsburgh’s offense was the only one to throw four passing touchdowns. That was great to see from quarterbacks Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson, no doubt.
Three of those four passing touchdowns came from the red zone, which tied for fourth in total touchdowns from the red area in preseason Week One. The Patriots had five, while the Browns and Rams each had four.
Rudolph’s pass was a refreshing 19-yard seam to the massive TE Darnell Washington. Many (including me) have been clamoring for more red zone involvement from Washington. Thompson threw for three total touchdowns, two from the red zone.
First was to WR Max Hurleman, who ran a nice out route from three yards out. The other from the red area was to RB Trey Sermon, coming on a wide open screen from 11 yards out. The latter has been scarcely successful in Pittsburgh, with the running joke from our Depot crew being “Is that legal?”
The Steelers’ fourth touchdown pass was an explosive go ball to the end zone, with WR Ke’Shawn Williams making a solid contested catch for the 26 yard score. Four passing TDs was a bragging right only Pittsburgh had in the opener, and it was nice to see the variety of routes on which they came.
Yes, defenses play more vanilla at this time of year, but seeing both players capitalize on what is in front of them is better than the alternative.
The main difference in the top red zone touchdown team is how they reached the end zone. New England had an impressive 48 point outing, with four red zone rushing TDs, compared to one pass.
When considering the Steelers’ run game really struggled to get things going in their first opportunity, things could have looked much more bleak in totality, if not for Pittsburgh’s strong passing attack.
In their second preseason game, hopefully we see the rushing attack show more life, making for an even better feeling to build on if the pass game continues to move it well.