with this crazy game.<\/a> The 66 combined points between the Steelers and Jets is the most in a Steelers Week 1 game since 1981 when Pittsburgh fell to the Kansas City Chiefs, 37-33.<\/p>\nThe 66 points are third-most combined in a Steelers opener, just behind the 34-34 tie against the New York Giants to begin the 1966 season. Overtime didn\u2019t begin until 1974.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Pittsburgh\u2019s 34 points are the most in an opener since the team posted 38 in a convincing 38-16 win over the Washington Redskins in 2016. The 32 allowed are the team\u2019s most in Week 1 since New England blitzed them to in 33-3 win in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Aaron Rodgers threw for four touchdowns in his Steelers debut. He\u2019s the first quarterback of the post-Ben Roethlisberger era to throw four, a span of 53 games. The last time a Steelers quarterback threw four touchdowns in any regular-season game was Roethlisberger in 2020, tossing four in a 36-10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Roethlisberger also threw four in the 2020 Wild Card loss to the Cleveland Browns.<\/p>\n
\u2013 In Steelers\u2019 history, Rodgers is just the fourth quarterback to throw at least for touchdown passes in a season opener. Roethlisberger was the last to do it in 2007, blowing out the Cleveland Browns, 34-7. Mark Malone tossed five in 1985 while Bobby Layne threw four back in 1960.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Here\u2019s a statement stat about his game. Aaron Rodgers is the first Steelers quarterback to throw for four touchdowns in his Pittsburgh debut.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Four different Steelers caught a touchdown pass Sunday: Calvin Austin III, Ben Skowronek, Jaylen Warren, and Jonnu Smith. That hasn\u2019t happened since 2018 when five different Steelers scored through the air: JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jaylen Samuels, Antonio Brown, Vance McDonald, and Jesse James. Of that group, only Smith-Schuster is still in the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Over its last two games, last year\u2019s Wild Card loss and yesterday, Pittsburgh has allowed 481 rushing yards.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Pittsburgh won Sunday despite rushing for 53 yards and giving up 182. Entering the game, the Steelers were just 4-28 when rushing for 55 yards or less and giving up 180 or more. Three of the four prior wins have come since 2020. The other? You guessed it \u2014 1933, the Steelers\u2019 first season when the team (then called the Pittsburgh Pirates) rushed for 49 while giving up 240 in a 16-14 win over the Boston Redskins.<\/p>\n
\u2013 My favorite weird Steelers stat. RB Kenneth Gainwell forced a key fumble on kick coverage to set up Rodgers\u2019 fourth touchdown pass. Gainwell is the first Steelers running back (not fullback, mind you) to force a fumble since \u201cFamous\u201d Amos Zereoue forced a fumble while covering a punt against the Jacksonville Jaguars \u2013 also\u00a0in a Week 1 game \u2013 back in 2001.<\/p>\n
Zereoue\u2019s play turned out to be less impactful. Unless you\u2019re the Jaguars. Jacksonville recovered the fumble and ran it down to the Steelers\u2019 3-yard line. Throwback to this wild play.<\/p>\n
Just to add to the crazy, the Jaguars missed the field goal, leaving them with no points on the drive.<\/p>\n
\u2013 TE Jonnu Smith finished the game with five receptions for 15 yards. He\u2019s the first non-Steelers running back in history to have at least five receptions for no more than 15 yards. There are four running backs who have done so: Jaylen Warren (2023), Mewelde Moore (2008), Franco Harris (1976), and Dick Hoak (1968). But Smith is in his own category as a non-back.<\/p>\n
\u2013 K Chris Boswell made two field goals from at least 56 yards. His 60-yarder sets a personal and franchise record. Dating back to last season, Boswell is 15-of-17 from 50-plus yards. That\u2019s 88.2 percent. To put that in perspective, that beats his career average of 88.1 percent from any\u00a0distance. An 88.2-percent career mark from any distance would rank third in NFL history.<\/p>\n
Boswell, by the way, now holds the third-best field goal percentage in NFL history. His two makes yesterday surpassed Eddy Pi\u00f1eiro for third on the all-time list, Boswell now only trailing Harrison Butker (88.8 percent) and Justin Tucker (89.1 percent).<\/p>\n
\u2013 Pittsburgh recorded just one sack, Alex Highsmith crunching Justin Fields in the second half. It\u2019s the first time since 2019 the Steelers registered just one sack in an opener.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Steelers rushed for just two first downs Sunday. They hadn\u2019t won any regular-season game with so few of them since 2021 against the Tennessee Titans. Pittsburgh had more first downs from penalties (three) than it did from rushes (two).<\/p>\n
\u2013 Dating back to last season and including the playoffs, T.J. Watt has gone five-straight games without a sack. His previous long droughts were three games, done during his 2017 rookie year and again in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football is back and so is our weekly Stats of the Weird. For a Week 1 game, we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[1586,39876,6594,6204,7,226,14451,1917,255,2321,2097,6,57,5226,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-352330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-amos-zereoue","10":"tag-ben-roethlisberger","11":"tag-chris-boswell","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-jets","14":"tag-kenneth-gainwell","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-jets","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkjets","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","21":"tag-t-j-watt","22":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115170355805826058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}