{"id":892281,"date":"2026-05-15T23:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T23:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/892281\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T23:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T23:00:21","slug":"analyst-predicts-tua-tagovailoa-falcons-put-42-points-on-steelers-in-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/892281\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyst Predicts Tua Tagovailoa, Falcons Put 42 Points On Steelers In Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes Week 1 can be a bit funny in the NFL. For example, last year the Las Vegas Raiders beat the New England Patriots on the road to open the season. Yet, the Raiders finished the year 3-14, while the Patriots went to the Super Bowl. To open their own season in 2026, the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to host<\/a> the Atlanta Falcons.<\/p>\n

A game which might not go well for Pittsburgh, in the eyes of Gregg Rosenthal. On his NFL Daily podcast<\/a>, Rosenthal had a segment in which he and his co-hosts tried to predict fluky Week 1 results, which wouldn\u2019t be indicative of the full season. He thought the Falcons could explode offensively in a win over Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Tua Tagovailoa, comes out Week 1 in Pittsburgh, it\u2019s not like it\u2019s the craziest upset ever, but him and Stefanski take it back to [Mike] McDaniel and Tua. They don\u2019t get to 70 [points], but they get to like 42. And it\u2019s just, they\u2019re playing this quick-strike offense, the Steelers look old,\u201d Rosenthal said.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Rosenthal does expect the Steelers to have a good season overall. A couple of weeks ago, he figured they\u2019d go over their projected win total<\/a> of 8.5.<\/p>\n

But could a performance like this from Tagovailoa and the Falcons really be on the books for the Steelers? First, he\u2019d have to win the starting role. Atlanta also has Michael Penix Jr. in the building, who they drafted eighth overall just a couple of years ago. Granted, they probably don\u2019t bring Tagovailoa in if they felt that secure in Penix. And Penix is recovering from an ACL tear he suffered in November, so the Falcons may want to ease him back anyways.<\/p>\n

The last time Tagovailoa played in Pittsburgh, it wasn\u2019t pretty. With Miami\u2019s season on the line last December, he looked bad in a freezing-cold game, one the Steelers dominated. That helped to eventually spell the end of his Dolphins\u2019 career.<\/p>\n

That said, maybe Week 1 is different. It\u2019s going to be a lot warmer when Tagovailoa takes the field in September, weather he typically performs much better in. There\u2019s also some solid talent around Atlanta\u2019s roster. They have a star wide receiver in Drake London, and another high-end player in the backfield in Bijan Robinson. There certainly is some talent to work with, and the Steelers were not impressive defensively in 2025. Pittsburgh added to that unit, but Rosenthal\u2019s prediction would count on those new faces needing time to jell.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Steelers need to get off to a strong start<\/a> in 2026. A Week 1 thrashing from the Falcons would certainly not be the start the Steelers are hoping for. But, while it won\u2019t be indicative of the whole season, Rosenthal does think it\u2019s a possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes Week 1 can be a bit funny in the NFL. For example, last year the Las Vegas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,224,7,7581,6,23060,3452],"class_list":["post-892281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlantafalcons","tag-falcons","tag-football","tag-gregg-rosenthal","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-daily","tag-tua-tagovailoa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116581081326834589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892281","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=892281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}