Tyler Shough threw for 278 yards and New Orleans scored 10 points. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story of Pittsburgh's 16-10 win.
The Steelers are 5-2 because they can do the thing the Saints can't: run the ball when the field compresses. Shough finished 30 of 38 for 278 yards with one touchdown, one interception and a 95.0 rating, and that rating is the most misleading number on the sheet. Thirty completions bought ten points. New Orleans' listed rushing leader for the afternoon was Shough himself, three carries for seven yards, which tells you everything about what happened once the ball left his hand.
Aaron Rodgers didn't have to be spectacular, and he wasn't. He went 19 of 30 for 212 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions at 95.4, and he absorbed three sacks for 17 yards without turning the ball over. His one scoring throw was a four-yarder to Darnell Washington. A four-yard touchdown to a blocking tight end is as characteristic of this Pittsburgh offense right now as anything Rodgers did down the field.
Jaylen Warren gave the Steelers the thing the Saints never had, a back who could move the chains on schedule. Eighteen carries, 101 yards, 5.6 per attempt, a long of 29, plus three catches for 36 more. Rico Dowdle added nine carries for 41. When Pittsburgh needed to eat the second half, it had an answer that didn't require Rodgers to stand in on third-and-medium.
The defensive box score reads like a team protecting a lead. T.J. Watt had a sack, two quarterback hits and a tackle for loss. Patrick Queen had 10 tackles, seven solo, with a sack, a tackle for loss and a pass defensed. Payton Wilson picked off Shough and returned it 18 yards, the only interception either quarterback threw.
New Orleans did manufacture one explosive play. Barion Brown caught three passes for 57 yards with a long of 49. DK Metcalf answered with two catches for 56 and a long of 51, on six targets. Metcalf's line is the more instructive one. Pittsburgh threw it 30 times for 212 yards and won anyway, because the run game and the takeaway did the work the passing game couldn't.
The fourth quarter, as the play log records it, was official timeouts at 7:04 and 5:52 and then the end. No final drive, no late drama. Pittsburgh had already squeezed the game into the shape it wanted.
Here's the claim. New Orleans has a quarterback problem that doesn't look like one on the stat sheet. Shough's 30 completions and 95.0 rating will keep buying him the benefit of the doubt, and the Saints will keep losing this way at 2-5, because a team whose leading rusher is its quarterback with seven yards cannot turn 278 passing yards into points. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is 5-2 without a functioning downfield passing game, and I trust that more in December than I trust a 278-yard passing line that produces ten points.
