What do several of the NFL's unbeaten teams have in common through two weeks?
They're running the football.
Of the teams that have won both of their first two games, the Steelers rank first in the NFL with 77 rushing attempts, while the Saints are second with 76. The Chargers, who play the Steelers Sunday at Acrisure Stadium in their home opener, have 71 rushing attempts. The Texans have 62.
Now, those are just four of the unbeaten teams that are averaging more than 30 rushing attempts per game, but other formerly pass-happy teams such as Buffalo, which has run the ball 59 times in its first two games, also are leaning more heavily on their ground games than they are throwing the ball all over the place.
As a simple matter, teams that are winning games usually run the ball more. But teams such as the Steelers, Saints, Chargers and Texans are choosing to run the ball to acquire the lead, as well.
Despite scoring a league-high 91 points in their first two games, the Saints have thrown an NFL-low 40 passes. The Steelers have thrown the third-fewest at 43. The Bills, even with Josh Allen, have attempted 42 passes. The Chargers? They have thrown the fourth-fewest passes with 46, despite having Justin Herbert at quarterback.
"It's good football coming back around," said Steelers inside linebacker Elandon Roberts. "They're running the ball now in this league. I think sometimes you try to take it out, but that's what football is built off of. So you're not going to take that physicality out of the game. And running backs are very valued in this league, no matter how people may feel. Running backs, their value is going to be seen. And that's why you've got guys doing what they're doing."
The reason for the uptick in running the ball is two-fold. Because so many defenses are now playing two-high safety looks to take away the deep passing game, teams are adjusting to the safeties playing deep.
Rather than have their quarterbacks continually throwing the ball underneath – where there's a lot of defensive traffic – offenses are instead choosing to run the ball into lighter boxes created by the safeties playing deep.
"You've got a lot of young quarterbacks, and a lot of guys, they're forced to play early," said Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. "They're used to playing the horizontal game."
The NFL also has had another trickle-down effect from college. With so many spread offenses in college, many of the linebackers coming into the NFL are bulked-up safeties, 220- to 230-pound players meant to help more in coverage than they are to stop the run.
That is why players such as Roberts, a true downhill thumper in the running game, are still valued.
Last week, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin called Roberts a "tooth chipper" in the run game, meaning he'll rattle a running back's teeth with his hits.
"You can't take that part of the game away," said Roberts. "And I don't think it'll go too far from the game. I don't think it's all the way out, because I do think that you have those type of guys, and that's even still playing every down.
"You still got the linebacker guys that's in this league. I think it's going to continue."
• How good has the Steelers defense been in the first two weeks?
The 16 points the team has allowed in the first two weeks is the fewest the team has given up to open a season since giving up 10 points in wins over the Browns and Bills to open the 2007 season.
The Steelers that season allowed just 16.8 points per game, second-fewest in the NFL.
Currently, the Steelers are allowing 8.0 points per game. Obviously, that won't keep up.
A big part of that has been the team's third-down defense. The Steelers are allowing a conversion rate of just 19 percent, which ranks first in the NFL. The second-best team is this week's opponent, the Chargers, who are allowing a conversion rate of 23.1 percent.
They also have allowed just one touchdown in five defensive red zone trips.
They also are a league-best plus-5 in turnover ratio, forcing five turnovers while avoiding having any themselves.
And that has perhaps been the biggest winning formula in the team's first two games.
Since the start of the 2020 season, the Steelers are 22-3 when they don't turn the ball over, a winning percentage of 88 percent.
There's a reason Tomlin likes to play things close to the vest and take calculated – not crazy – chances.
With this defense and an offense that takes care of the football, the Steelers can win a lot of football games.
• Winning defensively on first and third downs is something coaches stress.
The thinking is that if the defense wins on first down, it forces the opponent into tougher circumstances on second and third downs.
Meanwhile, winning on third down obviously gets the defense off the field.
One of the big things the Steelers have done in their first two games has been to win on second downs.
In fact, the Steelers have been the toughest team to throw the ball against on second down, allowing 8 yards on 19 pass attempts, an average of .8 yards per attempt. That's not a misprint.
Add in the fact that the Steelers also are allowing just 3.5 yards per second down rushing attempt, and you're going to put a lot of opponents in tough spots on third down.
Overall, the Steelers have given up 69 yards on 34 second-down plays this season, an average of 2.0 yards per play. That's a full half-yard better than the next closest NFL defense.
Contrast that to the first-down defense, and you see a big difference.
Opponents are throwing the ball more on first downs – largely against the Steelers' base defense, and averaging 6.9 yards per play. They've thrown the ball 26 times and run it 22.
• The NFL has really been pushing flag football in recent years, but some of the league's officiating crews might be taking that a bit too far.
Through two weeks of the 2024 season, NFL officials on average have called 15.1 penalties per game, including those that offset.
If that seems high, you're right. In 2023, there were an average of 13.4 penalty flags thrown per game. In 2022, that number was 13.1.
The current level of penalties being called is the highest since 2019, when officials threw their flags 16.0 times per game on average.
The Steelers have been one of the least penalized teams in the NFL over recent seasons, ranking 10th in the NFL last season with 92 penalties called against them, an average of 5.4 per game.
This season, they already have 19 penalties in two games.
And things might not necessarily get better this week as Alex Kemp's crew will work the Steelers' game Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Kemp's crew called the sixth-most penalties among officiating groups last season at 12.28 per game. This season, Kemp's crew is tied for fourth in terms of penalties called per game, averaging 14.
Offensive holding has been far and away the most often call by Kemp's crew, with nine in the first two weeks.
The crew of Clete Blakeman, who worked last week's 13-6 win by the Steelers over the Broncos, has far and away been the most flag-happy crew in the NFL this season, throwing 49 in two games. That's 10 more than the next-closest crew – in just two games.
Blakeman's crew has thrown 13 flags for offensive holding in two games.
Tomlin typically has local football officials work practices on Friday to help his team eliminate some of the miscues. This week, he brought them in on Wednesday and Thursday, as well.
• There's still talk of how the Steelers aren't throwing to the middle of the field.
That's hogwash.
Yes, they didn't attempt a pass to the middle of the field in Week 1, largely to stay away from the strength of Atlanta's defense, which is ball hawking safeties Jessie Bates and Justin Simmons, who have 51 career interceptions.
• Dale Lolley is co-host of "SNR Drive" on Steelers Nation Radio. Subscribe to the podcast here: Apple Podcast | iHeart Podcast
Last week against the Broncos, Justin Fields attempted 6 passes over the middle of the field, completing four of them for 38 yards.
Now, that might not seem like a lot, but realize that Fields only attempted 20 passes in the game.
Simple math shows that the Steelers attempted 30 percent of their passes in that game to the middle of the field.
Given that there are three general areas of the field, right, middle and left, attempting 30 percent of your passes to one area would work out to pretty close to 33 percent, which would be one-third of the pass attempts.
The Steelers did not ignore the middle of the field in Week 2.
