1. Quick draw

Over the first weekend of the NFL season, no quarterback had a faster average time from snap to throw than the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Aaron Rodgers. Per Pro Football Focus, Rodgers averaged 2.18 seconds from the snap until his attempted passes last week against the New York Jets. The number was 2.29 when his four times being sacked are factored in.

PFF reports that Rodgers let go of his passes in under 2 seconds for 52.9% of his throws in Week 1, the sixth-highest rate among starting QBs. His 83.3% completion percentage in such scenarios ranked tied for fifth; his 7.8 yards per attempt when throwing that quickly was seventh-best.

For context, the Jets’ Justin Fields held the ball for more than a full second longer per snap (3.27 seconds on his passing attempts). For the Steelers last season, Russell Wilson’s average time to throw was 2.67 seconds.

It was only one game, but Rodgers’ time to throw was reminiscent of the final season of Ben Roethlisberger’s career when he averaged an NFL-low 2.19 seconds from the snap to his pass attempts in 2021.

2. Action-play

Three of Rodgers’ four touchdown passes against the Jets came on play-action passes, the most of any quarterback for the weekend. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Rodgers never has had more play-action touchdown passes in a game since it began tracking such things in 2016.

Only five quarterbacks in Week 1 had more play-action pass attempts (10); just three had more completions (eight). Rodgers had a 148.3 passer rating using play-action, second-best in the league.

3. Twelve is more than 11

The “standard” NFL offensive personnel package in recent years is a three-wide receiver set (“Eleven personnel”). But in Week 1, only one of the other 31 teams used “11” as little as the Steelers.

According to sumersports.com, the Steelers used one running back and one tight end (and three wide receivers) for 37% of their offensive snaps against the Jets. The Green Bay Packers, at 36.2%, were the only team to use it less often. Twenty-three teams deployed “11” more than half of their snaps.

The Steelers, Packers and Cleveland Browns are the only teams over their openers that did not use “11” more than any other personnel package. Each instead relied more on the “12” (one running back, two tight ends, two wide receivers).

4. SpeeDK

DK Metcalf had four catches for 83 yards in his Steelers debut. He provided the Steelers’ longest gain of the day when he took a swing pass on the final play of the first quarter and ran for a 31-yard gain.

Next Gen Stats reports that Metcalf reached a peak speed of 21.25 mph on that catch-and-run — the third-fastest an NFL ball-carrier was recorded running throughout Week 1. The 34 yards after catch (YAC) that Metcalf gained on the play were tied for the sixth-most of any reception over NFL’s opening weekend. That play gained 20 yards more than expected (via Next Gen’s formula that takes into account where the ball is caught and the defenders’ relative positions on the field, etc) — the fourth-most YAC above expected in Week 1. Metcalf also had the play with the fifth-most YAC above expected (plus-17), gaining 23 yards with 19 in YAC when only 2 was expected.

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