PITTSBURGH -- With less than a minute to go and the outcome already a foregone conclusion, the Pittsburgh Steelers recorded a first in Sunday's 31-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Running back Kenneth Gainwell took a handoff from quarterback Mason Rudolph, cut outside as fullback Connor Heyward blocked Seahawks outside linebacker Boye Mafe and turned upfield for a 13-yard gain.
With that garbage-time play, the Steelers recorded their first explosive run of the season after going 119 minutes into the 2025 campaign without a rush of more than 10 yards.
Through two games, the Steelers' lone explosive rush play ranks last in the NFL, tied with the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns. For an organization built on physicality and a ground-and-pound identity, the start of the 2025 season defies the historic reputation of the Steelers. While the most glaring defensive issues stem from an inability to stop the run, the offensive problem is the inverse: The Steelers simply can't get their ground game going.
"I thought we had some cleaner runs," offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said of the team's Week 2 rushing attack. "It's not where you want to be. Certainly when you lose a game and then you're playing down in the fourth quarter, your opportunities are going to be a little more limited, but then it all starts in the first half, third quarter. ... It was a little bit better ... but when you lose, a lot of things need to be better."
As the team enters a Week 3 matchup in New England (1 p.m. ET, CBS), it will face an even tougher task against a Patriots defense that's allowing only 58.5 rushing yards per game. The passing defense, by comparison, is the worst in the league, giving up 315 yards per game. But Smith said he believes the Steelers' offensive identity is rooted in a balanced attack, something the club hasn't achieved so far.
"I don't fancy myself as an Air Raid guy, and I don't fancy myself as playing triple option or wing-T," Smith said. "You want to be balanced, and sometimes it's a week-to-week matchup. Regardless of what your philosophy is, you become one-dimensional in any circumstance you're going to make life hard on yourself, especially in the NFL.
"... You're looking to be efficient, explosive. That may come in the run game or run alerts or screen game, checkdowns, however you get to it. The key is obviously to score, drive efficiently and try to hit chunk plays."
There isn't just one key to unlocking the run game, but a big first step could be in tweaking the distribution of snaps in the backfield to give a heavier workload to fourth-year running back Jaylen Warren.
Though Warren was tabbed as the starter and lead back after Najee Harris' departure, the Steelers have largely split reps between him and Gainwell through two weeks. Warren has the edge with 59 snaps and 31 touches to Gainwell's 53 snaps and 18 touches. For an offensive coordinator such as Smith, who likes to think outside the box, Gainwell's value is in his versatility, but Warren's physicality coupled with his speed is a unique skill set.
"Jaylen makes his own success," left tackle Broderick Jones said. "He comes in every day working with the right attitude, and you can see it on Sundays when he goes out there. He's very slippery. He's a small person, but he's got fire behind him, too. He just brings that type of mentality to the game, and he has that swagger about himself that nobody can stop him."
That's an especially important mentality because Warren has picked up the bulk of his yards after contact this season; he has 49 yards after first contact compared to 36 before. The Steelers rank fifth in the league with 55% of their rush yards coming after first contact.
Against Seattle, Warren showcased that ability as he authored the Steelers' longest gain of the season when he turned a short pass in the flat into a 65-yard gain.
Shedding tackles and juking Seattle defenders, Warren took the pass from quarterback Aaron Rodgers and ricocheted down the field before the Seahawks finally dragged him down inside the 10-yard line in the fourth quarter of Sunday's loss. It was the kind of electrifying play the Steelers believed the running back to be capable of when they let 2021 first-round pick Harris walk in free agency and promoted the one-time undrafted free agent to lead back and signed him to a two-year extension.
"The biggest compliment I can give him is when you're behind a four straight 1,000-yard rusher, you're seen as a changeup back, and he's a guy who could be a No. 1 back on any team in the league," Rodgers said. "... That was one of the greatest catch-and-runs I've seen. Donald Driver had a crazy one back in 2009 where a guy fell over his back and he was drilled on the 5-yard line and somehow got in. But that catch-and-run and those jukes that he made were pretty incredible."
And yet, Warren's massive gain was also the kind of play that's otherwise been lacking early in Pittsburgh's season.
The Steelers rank 19th with 12 explosive plays, defined as run plays of at least 10 yards or pass plays of 16 or more. Gainwell's run is the lone explosive rushing play. Through two games last season, the Steelers were tied for 12th in the league with six explosive run plays, and they averaged 139 yards.
Part of the lag this season, members of the Steelers offense said, is a lack of cohesion with so many new players. Though there's familiarity with Warren as a runner, the offensive line shuffled with Jones on the left and Troy Fautanu on the right.
"It definitely needs to get better," said guard Isaac Seumalo, who missed the beginning of training camp on the non-football injury list. "It's very easy to say on the outside. Internally, we're still doing all the right things. That's how it goes when you trust the process. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not something that goes from zero to 100 as quickly as you'd like to. ... And I think there were improvements from Week 1 to Week 2. Not enough. We needed to be better, maybe be more productive, keep chewing up that clock and give our defense a chance to rest."
The Steelers did improve from Week 1 to Week 2, going from 53 rushing yards and 2.6 yards per carry against the Jets to 72 yards and 3.4 yards per carry against the Seahawks. Still, the Steelers rank 30th in rushing yards per game (62.5), yards per carry (3.0) and rush attempts per game (20.5). The next step is to make more explosive plays on the ground -- and not when the game is already decided.
"Ten-plus-yard runs," Rodgers said of what he wants to see out of the run game. "That's what [offensive line coach] Pat [Meyer] wants to see. That's what Mike T [coach Tomlin] wants to see. That's what Art [Smith] wants to see. Our backs are slippery enough; we got to get them up to the second level clean. Just keep hitting our aiming points. It's not always on the line. It's sometimes the combination blocks, sometimes the track. So we just got to be perfect in execution."