On the first offensive play run by Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday, Aaron Rodgers accomplished something that neither he nor Mason Rudolph had done the entire month of November.

He completed a pass that traveled 20 yards or longer in the air.

When Rodgers took advantage of single coverage on the outside and threaded a 52-yard completion to DK Metcalf, it was the first deep-ball completion for any Steelers quarterback since Oct. 26 against Green Bay. That snapped a five-game run, which included four starts by Rodgers and one by Rudolph, without a completion on a pass that traveled at least 20 yards in the air.

It also set up a touchdown that gave the Steelers a first-quarter lead en route to a 27-22 victory against the Baltimore Ravens that snapped a two-game losing streak and moved the Steelers back into sole possession of first place in the AFC North.

Rodgers was looking to set an aggressive tone against the Ravens. He just didn’t know if the opportunity would present itself on the team’s first offensive snap.

“Obviously, when he’s making plays like that, we’re a better football team,” Rodgers said this week. “Getting him involved in the first play wasn’t exactly the play call, but I kind of felt when he told me he was thinking about that play Saturday night, I was hoping for a certain coverage so I could give him a shot to get us going.”

The Ravens obliged by not providing safety support, leaving Metcalf in a one-on-one matchup.

“I saw Aaron loaded up and I said, ‘Great, here we go,’” Metcalf said. “That’s all I needed was opportunities down the field, and we were able to capitalize on them.”

The deep completion not only sent a message to the Ravens, it showed the Steelers defense that an aggressive posture was going to be necessary for the Steelers to avenge two losses in Baltimore last season.

“I was not expecting that at all, so that definitely got us fired up,” inside linebacker Patrick Queen said. “We really trust our offense. I was talking about it earlier in the year. We let them down a couple times. We know we’ve got an offense. We’ve just got to get them the ball, get it to them in good field position. We trust every single guy on that offense to go out there and do their job and do it at a high level.”

The completion also fueled confidence in a deep-passing game that had been virtually non-existent for the entire season. Rodgers was 3 for 3 on deep attempts, connecting with Metcalf all three times for 121 yards. He also had a 31-yard completion on the sideline to Calvin Austin III that was a shoestring tackle away from going for a touchdown.

Until the Steelers ventured into M&T Bank Stadium, Rodgers had just seven completions of 20-plus yards over his first 12 starts. Rudolph didn’t have any against Chicago. In fact, his early deep pass intended for Metcalf was intercepted.

“The expectation is to make the play,” offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said. “Certainly, (there are) matchups where you’re not going to make every one of them. Just because it doesn’t work, to me that shouldn’t discourage you from trying it and keep working through it. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing.”

If the Steelers caught the Ravens off guard with their deep passing game, they likely won’t get the same luxury Monday night when the Miami Dolphins visit Acrisure Stadium. In the NFL where every play is dissected like the Zapruder film, the Dolphins will have a system in place designed to keep the Rodgers-to-Metcalf connection in check. The Dolphins rank No. 11 among the 32 teams in terms of fewest air yards allowed per completion.

“(It will) be a different story Monday night,” Smith said. “We’ll put in things to try to take advantage of what they do. They’ll have a plan, but certainly it helps open things up when you can make those explosive plays.”

That explosive nature against Baltimore can partially be attributed to the presence of Adam Thielen and Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the game-day roster. Thielen was claimed off waivers earlier in the week, and Valdes-Scantling was active for the first time since joining the practice squad in November.

When they were on the field, the two veteran receivers generated some respect the Steelers may not have been afforded with Austin and Roman Wilson complementing Metcalf. Wilson was a healthy scratch as the Steelers went with a veteran receiving group that included Scotty Miller getting a helmet.

“You’ve got to give credit to those guys for the way they prepared,” Rodgers said. “They’re pros. They’ve played a lot of football at a high level, so I wasn’t surprised, but it definitely helps with the passing game when everybody is in the right spot every single time.”

Having run the fewest plays of any NFL offense, it’s not surprising then that Rodgers has just 838 completed air yards, which ranks No. 28 among quarterbacks who have started a majority of his team’s games. His 5.9 average on intended air yards — the distance passes thrown whether or not they are completed — is No. 34, and his 3.7 average air yards on completions is No. 35. Which means that some injured or benched quarterbacks are higher on the list than Rodgers.

But, as Rodgers and Metcalf showed against the Ravens the Steelers do indeed have a deep passing game.

“You need to evolve things that you think are going to be good for us,” Smith said. “You don’t want to give them the game they think they’re going to get. … You try to do that every week. Sometimes it works better than others. The last thing is, you don’t want to die on the same hill and keep repeating the same mistakes.

“Something we’ve been working on worked at times that we continue to lean into. There are other things we need to change up. … Just kind of where we were, what we thought gave us the best chance to come out and get going was to hit them early, and that kind of gave us a little bit of a spark.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)