Steelers (

19.5) at
Packers (

25.5)

Game Overview ::

By MJohnson86 >>

• The narrative around Ben Roethlisberger is exceedingly negative after a rough start to the season from a stats and film perspective.
• Green Bay presents Pittsburgh’s offense with their easiest on-paper matchup of the season, however that may be offset by the mounting injuries they are facing.
• Pittsburgh’s defense will likely funnel Green Bay to a more pass-happy approach and their pass rush (if TJ Watt is able to play) and scheme will likely cause the Packers to focus on short area passing.

How PittsBurgh Will Try To Win ::

Injuries in the receiving corps will have a large impact on how the Steelers are able to attack their easiest matchup of the season by most metrics. Pittsburgh’s first three opponents rank 2nd, 4th, and 11th in Football Outsiders’ defensive DVOA metrics — while Green Bay checks in at 26th and has at least two starters in danger of missing Week 4. Diontae Johnson and JuJu Smith-Schuster are both very uncertain for this week and their availability will be critical for allowing Ben Roethlisberger a chance to bounce back from a horrendous start.

Pittsburgh has the 28th-graded run-blocking offensive line by PFF and is getting almost no push off the ball. When pressured, Ben Roethlisberger is showing his age and is currently PFF’s 39th-graded QB under pressure out of 42 qualifying passers. This is not a recipe for success. The Steelers will need to attack the short area of the field with throws — as they attempted to do last week — to move the ball and keep Ben from throwing away their chances early in the game. A few deep shots may be in order to Chase Claypool and James Washington, assuming the Packers will attempt to take away those short area throws. Ben will have to prove capable of making some plays down the field to have any chance of sustained offensive success early in this game. Otherwise, Pittsburgh will be forced into some long 3rd downs where he will face heavy pressure and is likely to make big mistakes that dig the Steelers an insurmountable hole. This is assuming the Packers make those necessary adjustments for this matchup — it should be noted that they played soft coverage and allowed the Lions to complete short area throws in a Week 2 matchup that was much more competitive than it should have been. If the Packers take that conservative route again, the Steelers should be able to move the ball in their desired mode — quick, short passes spread across their playmakers (hopefully with as many of them active and effective as possible).

How Green Bay Will Try To Win ::

Pittsburgh’s defense had an outstanding performance in an upset win over the Bills in Week 1. Since then, they have been put on skates in back-to-back home games by under the radar teams in the Raiders and Bengals. Without a doubt, the loss of all-pro edge rusher TJ Watt to a groin injury early against the Raiders (Watt was inactive for the Bengals game) had a huge impact on the outcome of those games. Watt “held out” for all of training camp as he was seeking a new contract — he was present but only participated in individual drills well into September. Players coming off of holdouts often take some time to get up to speed and are at risk of soft tissue injuries, which Watt is dealing with now. Watt is practicing on a limited basis to start the week and his presence and ability to be effective would certainly have an effect on how this game plays out and how the Packers attack it. The Packers are still missing their all-pro LT David Bakhtiari from his torn ACL at the end of last season and, while only allowing two sacks per game through three weeks, were exposed repeatedly by Nick Bosa on Sunday night in Week 3 and will have to deal with the same issues this week if the Steelers are at full strength.

This storyline will be critical to how the game plays out, as the Steelers present a clear pass-funnel defense with PFF’s 4th-graded rush defense and 30th-graded pass coverage unit through three weeks. Davante Adams is used as an extension of the run game via screen passes and short area passing — Adams saw a whopping 18 targets in a Week 3 win at San Francisco. That strategy should play perfectly against the Steelers, who blitz often and play a lot of man coverage. They do not have anyone who can jam Adams at the line of scrimmage without getting burned deep, so they will have to give him some cushion which should allow him to rack up easy catches and move the chains if they employ their usual approach. Aaron Jones is the clear lead back in Green Bay and possesses big-play potential on the ground and through the air — he will likely be used in space as the only other truly dynamic playmaker the Packers have rather than slamming him into a strong defensive front repeatedly. From a strategic standpoint, if the Steelers were to switch up from their usual defensive strategy — as they did in Week 1 at Buffalo — the smartest approach would be to jam Adams while also shading safety help to that side of the field and sending pressure at the Packers left side of their offensive line. If Watt is active, they could do this without blitzing at their normal rate, but if he is inactive or limited then Pittsburgh will need to dial up pressure in other ways so Rodgers doesn’t have all day to find openings. Adams moves around the formation frequently — aligning in the slot on 24.5% of his snaps — so even if Pittsburgh employs a strategy like that, the Packers will find ways to get the ball in his hands.  Selling out on Adams would leave the Packers other WRs with 1-on-1 matchups that they need to win quickly — which is not necessarily their strong point as an average group athletically. Marquez Valdez-Scantling would usually be the deep threat on the other side that takes the top off the defense and makes them pay for this strategy, but he left Week 3 with a hamstring injury which has his availability in doubt. He did not practice Wednesday and even if he is active on game day, a hamstring injury will make it difficult to ask him to repeatedly run deep routes. The Packers showed the ability in Week 1 to lay a complete egg if a talented defense takes away the things they want to do, and the Steelers could potentially present a similar challenge to what the Saints did in Week 1.

Likeliest Game Flow :: 

This game presents some very interesting angles from a game flow perspective. Aaron Rodgers notoriously uses almost all of the play clock on most snaps, using that time to gather all of the information he can and checking into the optimal play when necessary. Ben Roethlisberger has been noticeably frustrated with the Steelers’ offensive play calling as they adjust to a new offensive coordinator, and with mounting injuries among skill players would seem unlikely to pick a road game at Lambeau Field as the time to push the tempo and give Aaron Rodgers more opportunities.

On the flip side of that, both defenses potentially present an incentive for their opponent to skew pass-heavy, a scenario that would raise the pace of the game and result in increased volume for both sides. Pittsburgh’s pass-funnel defense and poor run-blocking offensive line — the 28th-graded unit by PFF — present cases for both sides to air it out with their Hall-of-Fame QB. Which way this game skews will almost certainly depend on the status of the key injuries each team is dealing with, as noted earlier.

DFS+ Interpretation ::