A great first step against the Patriots in week 3 on Sunday could be a greater workload for Jaylen Warren.
Pittsburgh-with less than a minute for the end and the result already almost determined, the Pittsburgh Steelers achieved their first victory in Sunday's defeat by 31-17 against the Seattle Seahawks. The corridor Kenneth Gainwell He received the Ball of the Campo Marshal Mason Rudolphcut out while fullback Connor Heyward I blocked the external linebacker of the Seahawks, Hidden Meand advanced field for a gain of 13 yards.
With that play in junk time, the Steelers recorded their first explosive race of the season after spending 119 minutes in the 2025 campaign without a race of more than 10 yards.
In two games, the only explosive play of the Steelers occupies the last place in the NFL, tied with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns. For an organization based on the physicist and a land game identity, the beginning of the 2025 season challenges the historical reputation of the Steelers. While the most obvious defensive problems are due to the inability to stop the race, the offensive problem is the inverse: Steelers simply fail to articulate their land game.
“I think we had cleaner races,” said offensive coordinator Arthur Smith about the team's land attack in week 2. “It's not what one wants. Certainly, when you lose a game and then you play at a disadvantage in the last quarter, your opportunities will be a little more limited, but then everything starts in the first half, the third quarter … It was a little better … but when you lose, many things need to improve.”
Upon arriving at his game of week 3 in front of the New England Patriots as a visitor (1 PM ET, CBS), he will face an even more difficult task against a defense of the Patriots that only allows 58.5 terrestrial yards per game. The aerial defense, compared, is the worst in the league, allowing 315 yards per game. But Smith said he believes that the offensive identity of the Steelers is based on a balanced attack, something that the club has not achieved so far.
“I do not consider myself an Air Raid player, nor do I consider playing triple option or like wing-t,” Smith said. “You seek balance, sometimes it is a weekly confrontation. Regardless of your philosophy, you become one -dimensional in any circumstance and you will complicate life, especially in the NFL.
“… you are looking to be efficient, explosive. That can manifest itself in the land game, in the race alerts, in the screen game, in the passes, as you do. The key, obviously, is to write down, penetrate efficiently and try to get key plays.”
There is no single key to decipher the land game, but an important first step could be to adjust the distribution of the plays in the backfield to give the fourth year corridor a greater workload Jaylen Warren.
Although Warren was appointed as headline and leader after the departure of Najee HarrisSteelers have divided repetitions between him and Gainwell for two weeks. Warren has the advantage with 59 plays and 31 touches, compared to 53 plays and 18 touches of Gainwell. For an offensive coordinator such as Smith, who likes to think originally, Gainwell's value lies in his versatility, but Warren's physical capacity, added to his speed, constitutes a unique set of skills.
“Jaylen forges his own success,” said the left Tackle Broderick Jones. “It comes every day working with the right attitude, and it shows on Sundays when it goes to the field. It is very elusive. It is small, but it also has a lot of energy. It simply brings that mentality to the game and has that arrogance that nobody can stop.”
That mentality is especially important because Warren has accumulated most of its yards after contact this season; It has 49 yards after the first contact, compared to the previous 36. The Steelers take fifth in the league, with 55% of their terrestrial yards after the first contact.
Against Seattle, Warren demonstrated that ability to be the author of the longest gain of the season's steers, by turning a short pass into a 65 -yard gain.
Dodging cup and dodging the defenders of Seattle, Warren received the pass from the Marshal Aaron Rodgers and bounced down field before the Seahawks finally knocked him down within Yarda 10 in the last quarter of Sunday's defeat. It was the type of electrifying play that the Steelers believed that the corridor was able to make when they let Harris, selected in the first round of the 2021 draft, left in the free agency and amounted to the former free agent not recruited to the main corridor, signing with him a two -year contract extension.
“The largest compliment that I can do is that when you are behind a corridor with four consecutive races of 1,000 yards, they see you as a exchange corridor, and he is a guy who could be the number one corridor in any league team,” Rodgers said. “That was one of the best reception and career plays that I have seen. Donald Driver had an incredible in 2009, where a player fell on his back, was rammed in Yarda 5 and somehow managed to enter. But that reception and race play and those feints he made were incredible.”
And yet, Warren's huge gain was also the type of play that Pittsburgh has been lacking at the beginning of the season.
The Steelers occupy the 19th place with 12 explosive plays, defined as race moves of at least 10 yards or pass plays of 16 or more. Gainwell's career is the only explosive play by land. In two games of last season, the Steelers were tied in the 12th place of the League with six explosive race plays, and averaged 139 yards.
Part of the delay of this season, according to members of the Steelers offensive, is due to the lack of cohesion with so many new players. Although Warren is already familiar as a runner, the offensive line was reorganized with Jones on the left and Troy is touched on the right.
“It definitely needs to improve,” admitted the guard Isacac.who lost the beginning of the training camp not related to American football. “It is very easy to say it from the outside. Internally, we continue doing everything right. That's when you trust the process. It does not happen overnight. It is not something that passes from zero to 100 as fast as you would like … and I think there were improvements from week 1 to week 2. They were not enough. We needed to be better, perhaps more productive, continue to run out time and give our defense the opportunity to rest.”
The Steelers did improve from week 1 to week 2, from 53 terrestrial yards and 2.6 yards for hauling against the jets to 72 yards and 3.4 yards per haul against Seahawks. Even so, Steelers occupy the 30th position in terrestrial yards per game (62.5), yards for hauling (3.0) and hauling attempts per party (20.5). The next step is to make more explosive moves by land, and not when the game is already determined.
“Races of more than ten yards,” Rodgers said about what he wants to see in the land game. “That is what (the offensive line coach) Pat (Meyer) wants to see. That is what Mike T (coach Tomlin) wants to see. That is what art (Smith) wants the execution “.
