{"id":877156,"date":"2025-10-12T23:14:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/aaron-rodgers-details-improvised-touchdown-to-connor-heyward-really-smart-player\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T23:14:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:14:57","slug":"aaron-rodgers-details-improvised-touchdown-to-connor-heyward-really-smart-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/aaron-rodgers-details-improvised-touchdown-to-connor-heyward-really-smart-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Rodgers Details Improvised Touchdown To Connor Heyward: \u2018Really Smart Player\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football <\/p>\n

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When many Pittsburgh Steelers fans were calling for Connor Heyward\u2019s roster spot this summer, Aaron Rodgers stood firmly behind him, praising his football IQ and calling him a smart player<\/a>. Heyward showed some of those football smarts today on an improvised touchdown throw from Rodgers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a keeper to the right. Jaylen [Warren] had a great block,\u201d Rodgers said Sunday after the Steelers\u2019 23-9 win over the Cleveland Browns via Pittsburgh\u2019s YouTube<\/a>. \u201cFirst look is in the flat, second\u2019s kind of to DK [Metcalf] on the backside. Connor\u2019s really kind of a clear-out route. I just got out there. Connor\u2019s a really smart player and I just was kind of like either you or DK, one of you guys see this and go that way. And Connor did, and I put a decent ball on him and [he made] a nice catch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodgers isn\u2019t as mobile as he was a decade ago, but he can still extend plays. It\u2019s up to the receivers to work themselves open in those situations, even if that means deviating from the called play and running routes like you would on the playground. That\u2019s exactly what Heyward did.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a clip of the play from the NFL on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can see Rodgers\u2019 hand signal to flow back inside, and Heyward made one subtle step back to the middle. It was a fantastic throw by Rodgers and an equally great catch by Heyward in traffic.<\/p>\n

Just because you run a decoy route doesn\u2019t mean the ball isn\u2019t coming your way. Players working to get open like this is exactly how busted plays can turn into touchdowns. With a quarterback like Rodgers, that is always a possibility.<\/p>\n

The game was 9-3 at the time with the Steelers struggling to convert their drives into more than field goals. This was the touchdown that broke the game wide open for Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

So no, Connor Heyward isn\u2019t just a special teams player who can provide no value on offense. He proved that he can make plays in limited opportunities. And moments like these, with Rodgers on the run outside the pocket, earns Heyward a lot of trust moving forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read More<\/a> Ross McCorkle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When many Pittsburgh Steelers fans were calling for Connor Heyward\u2019s roster spot this summer, Aaron Rodgers stood firmly behind him, praising his football IQ and calling him a smart player. Heyward showed some of those football smarts today on an improvised touchdown throw from Rodgers. \u201cIt was just a keeper to the right. Jaylen [Warren]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":877157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1779,3790,787],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-877156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-aaron","8":"category-football","9":"category-rodgers"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}