GREEN BAY — With Aaron Rodgers taking the night off and Jordan Love calling it a day after only one offensive series, Thursday night’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Green Bay Packers preseason game was not a quarterbacking showdown. 

Unless you were talking about Mason Rudolph vs. Kyle McCord, who both had their moments during the course of the night.

But it was a productive night for a Packers team that went into game action with a number of areas where additional information needed to be gleaned.

Head coach Matt LaFleur’s decision to play his starters also appeared to work out, as none of the team’s front-line players appeared any worse for wear as they stood on the sideline in spectator mode.

“Any reps that we can get as an offense — all together being out there — is meaningful to us to kind of knock off the rust a little bit, get into a little bit more of a game flow,” wide receiver Christian Watson told sideline reporter Karley Marotta during a fourth-quarter interview on the TV broadcast. “It felt good.”

The only apparent injuries in the immediate aftermath of the game were to backup offensive lineman Darian Kinnard and defensive tackle Anthony Campbell, both of whom appeared to sustain leg injuries during the second half.

Safety Mark Perry left the game late in the first half with what looked like a shoulder injury but he returned in the second half.

Here are three things that stood out in the immediate aftermath of the Packers’ 28-9 loss to the Steelers:

1️⃣ For all the handwringing about rookie kicker Trey Smack so far this summer — and make no mistake, some of it was warranted — he was money in his first NFL game, accounting for all the Packers’ points.

Smack was perfect in his NFL preseason debut — including a kick that didn’t even count.

Smack started his night by drilling a 58-yarder to cap their Packers’ opening offensive possession — only to have it taken off the board after the Steelers were flagged for a 15-yard personal foul for roughing Packers long snapper Cal Adomitis.

When the Love-led offense stalled again, Smack coolly split the uprights on a 37-yarder to give the Packers a 3-0 lead.

Then, at the end of the half, McCord got the Packers into fringe scoring position and LaFleur sent Smack out for another 58-yarder, which he promptly nailed to make it 7-6 Steelers at the half.

LaFleur, special teams coordinator Cam Achord and several teammates, including cornerback Kamal Hadden, mobbed Smack to celebrate kick before heading to the locker room.

Smack then hit a 38-yarder during the third quarter that gave the Packers a 9-7 lead at the time.

Not bad for the guy who started training camp 8 for 13 before making 12 of his las 15 live kicks in practice, including 6 for 7 on Family Night and 4 for 5 during Tuesday’s final practice before the team departed for Pittsburgh.

2️⃣ New defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon was coy last week when asked how much of his scheme he’d show in the preseason. He was pretty bold on Thursday night.

New coordinators have two options during preseason play.

They can keep their scheme under wraps, just run a bunch of basic, vanilla stuff during the games, and make sure their early regular-season opponents have nothing to work with in the film room, or they can run some of their stuff to give their players in-game work on what they’ll be running when the games do start to count.

Gannon opted for Door No. 2.

In fact, Gannon dialed up several blitzes and seemed to show the biggest slice of his playbook in his first preseason game running the Packers defense since Dom Capers had his first defense in 2009 run a bunch of his playbook that summer.

The coordinators who followed Capers — Mike Pettine, Joe Barry and Jeff Hafley — were comparatively more conservative in exhibition play.  

Two of the blitzes Gannon ran in the first half resulted in sacks: An A-gap blitz by inside linebacker Zaire Franklin — not an exotic blitz by any means — led to a sack of Rudolph.

Later, Gannon sent safety/nickelback Kitan Oladapo on a blitz for a sack on Will Howard. In between, Brenton Cox had a sack of his own on a strong edge rush on Rudolph.

“A lot of different ways to do it,” Gannon had replied last week when asked if he planned on showing any of his playbook in preseason. “I’ve had some really good conversations with Matt about that. I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong answer with that question. It’s a really good question.

“I’ll probably punt that one to Matt on what we’re going to do. How do I say this the right way to you guys? … I think that our players have earned the right to play our stuff and get really good at it and go play.”

3️⃣ While Love went one-and-done, playing only one series and finishing his evening having completed 3 of 5 passes for 18 yards (67.1 rating), his linemen stayed on the field considerably longer.

Playing without veteran left guard Aaron Banks, who has yet to take an 11-on-11 snap in camp because of a knee issue, and veteran right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele, who just began doing team periods earlier in the week, the Packers opened the game with the offensive line we expected:

Jordan Morgan at left tackle, rookie Jager Burton at left guard, Sean Rhyan at center, Jacob Monk at right guard and Anthony Belton at right tackle.

After the first series, when Tyrod Taylor took over for Love at quarterback, Rhyan came out of the game, Monk moved to center and Donovan Jennings took over at right guard.

Later in the first half, when McCord replaced Taylor at quarterback, John Williams took over for Morgan at left tackle.

And to start the second half, the Packers’ line was Williams at left tackle, Dillon Wade at left guard, Jennings at center, Kinnard at right guard and Travis Glover at right tackle.

​COPYRIGHT 2026 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.