Where Do Steelers Stand In Week 2 Power Rankings?

One side of the football was pretty good and helped carry team to a win. The other side of the ball was slow out of the gates and struggled in its first real action of the season.

The roles were just reversed for the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday against the New York Jets. The offense with Aaron Rodgers came out fast and put up 34 points, while a star-studded defense that is the highest-paid one in the league had no answers for the Jets until very late in the game. 

But a win is a win, and the Steelers are 1-0 with optimism growing after their performance at MetLife Stadium.

Yet, that optimism isn’t reflected in the power rankings across the NFL landscape entering Week 2.

Below is a chart of aggregate power rankings from several major outlets.

The Steelers still remain ranked — on average — outside of the top 15.

That should be just fine with the Steelers, too. While they got the win Sunday against the Jets, they didn’t play all that well, especially defensively. They had no answers for the Jets’ run game, which is a major concern considering they allowed 299 rushing yards in their Wild Card loss to the Baltimore Ravens back in January and set out in the offseason to fix the run defense. 

It might have just been some Week 1 sloppiness. At least, that’s the hope.

But offensively, there’s a lot to like with how Rodgers looked at 41 years old. He stuck it to the Jets and looked good doing it.

“It sure seems like a slighted A-Rod is the best A-Rod. And, oh, how fun it must have been for him to toss four touchdown passes against the coach and team that no longer wanted him!” The Athletic’s Josh Kendall writes of the Steelers in the power rankings. “Can he keep it rolling without the motivation of facing the Jets?

“We’ll see, but the 41-year-old showed he can still sling it.”

It remains to be seen if that was just a Week 1 boost for Rodgers going against the Jets and head coach Aaron Glenn, who had him fly across the country just to tell him he was no longer wanted by the franchise. He downplayed the matchup all offseason and throughout last week, but there had to be a desire to stick it to the Jets and Glenn deep down for Rodgers.

He did just that, tossing four touchdown passes and showing he can still play. Coming off the high of that revenge matchup, we’ll see if Rodgers can continue to play at that level. Hopefully he doesn’t have to carry the Steelers every week, but it was encouraging to see him throw the ball around and drive the bus offensively in a shootout win in his first game with the franchise.