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Pittsburgh handled Green Bay 28-9 in both teams' preseason opener Thursday night at Acrisure Stadium, and while the final score means nothing for the regular season, the game answered real questions at two crowded backfields and put a rookie passing combo on tape. Here is what actually matters from a fantasy standpoint.
With Josh Jacobs sidelined by a groin injury, Lloyd got the start and opened the game with a 5-yard run on Green Bay's first snap. He finished with four carries for 13 yards in a short first-team look alongside Jordan Love, who went 3 of 5 passing on the opening drive, including a third-down conversion to Jayden Reed, before both sat for the rest of the night. It was not a huge sample, but it mattered: Lloyd, a 2024 third-round pick, has played in exactly one regular-season game since arriving in Green Bay after his rookie year was wiped out by a recurring hamstring injury, and Chris Brooks had been listed ahead of him on the team's first unofficial depth chart entering camp. Getting the start over Brooks with Jacobs out is a real signal about where the coaching staff currently trusts him in the pecking order behind Jacobs, even in a small dose. Love, for his part, was not touched during his series, notable given he injured his non-throwing hand in last year's preseason opener against the Jets.
Green Bay's most interesting offensive news had nothing to do with the starters. Kyle McCord, a sixth-round pick working as the third quarterback on the depth chart, came on for the second and third quarters and went 12 of 16 for 102 yards, including four straight completions on a two-minute drill that ended with him spiking the ball with one second left to set up a field goal. Head coach Matt LaFleur singled out his poise afterward. The contrast mattered because it came right after Green Bay's other reserve option struggled: undrafted rookie Kyron Drones was sacked three times across just six offensive plays in his two series. In a quarterback room that will need a credible backup plan behind Love at some point this season, McCord took a real step forward and Drones took a step back, in the same night, against the same opponent.
Pittsburgh's rookie class did the most damage. Drew Allar, the team's third-round pick out of Penn State, went 10 of 13 for 153 yards with two touchdown passes and added a 3-yard rushing score, good for a passer rating north of 150. That came in relief of veteran Mason Rudolph, who started and went 10 of 11 for 93 yards before his own drive stalled a yard short of the end zone when Pat Freiermuth was stopped inches from the goal line. Allar's biggest connection came on a 74-yard catch-and-run to fourth-round pick Kaden Wetjen, a return specialist out of Iowa who was drafted mainly for special teams but looked like a legitimate offensive weapon in the second half, adding a 5-yard touchdown catch on top of it. Fifth-round pick Riley Nowakowski, a fullback/tight end who won a national title at Indiana last season, caught a 4-yard touchdown pass of his own from backup quarterback Will Howard. None of this reshuffles the actual depth chart today, but it is exactly the kind of tape that pushes a Day 3 rookie ahead of a camp body when roster cuts come.
Will Howard's two-minute drive finished with a short touchdown run from Lew Nichols, a name with a strange tie to this exact matchup: he was a seventh-round pick of the team he just scored against back in 2023, bounced around the league afterward, and eventually re-signed off a practice squad with his current club. It made for a nice moment, but it does not reorder a backfield that still lists Jaylen Warren and free-agent addition Rico Dowdle at the top, Kaleb Johnson third, then Nichols, Travis Homer and seventh-round rookie Eli Heidenreich fighting for whatever carries are left. Heidenreich got the extended look Thursday, and the results were rough: nine carries for just 21 yards, the kind of debut that does not move him up a Pittsburgh depth chart that already has four bodies ahead of him.
Green Bay's actual standout performer wore a different jersey number than any of its offensive skill players. Rookie kicker Trey Smack, a sixth-round pick, went a perfect 3 for 3 on field goals that counted, including makes from 58 and 38 yards, and LaFleur called it a really strong first outing. It will not move fantasy rosters, but it is one more reason a lopsided scoreboard undersold how competitive Green Bay's operation actually looked in stretches.
None of this is regular-season data, and preseason usage this early should never override real depth charts. But a backup quarterback climbing the pecking order, a rookie passing connection that flashed for two scores, and a crowded backfield still lacking a settled third carrier are all real threads to track into Week 2 of the preseason. If you are stress-testing rookie stock before your best ball drafts, our rookie rankings and best ball tools are the fastest way to see how a performance like Allar-to-Wetjen should actually move a late-round dynasty stash versus a name you can safely ignore until the regular season opens.
