Rico Dowdle — Week 2: Nine Touches, Forty-Four Yards
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21
Dowdle carried seven times for 22 yards and caught both of his targets for 22, each a first down, the longer a 13-yard catch with 39 seconds left in the third quarter. He did not touch the ball after it. Jaylen Warren had 11 of Pittsburgh's 21 designed runs to his seven, in a 20–3 loss to the Patriots.
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13 to three, Patriots, 39 seconds left in the third quarter, first and 10 at the Pittsburgh 28. Aaron Rodgers threw short middle to Rico Dowdle, who caught it at the line of scrimmage and took it 13 yards to the 41. +0.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. It was the longest of his nine touches and the last of them. Three snaps later, one of them wiped out by a holding flag, Rodgers was sacked and the fumble went back for the New England touchdown that made it 20 to three.
The line: seven carries, 22 yards, one first down, one of the seven successful, −2.4 expected points on the carries; two targets, two catches, 22 yards, both first downs, +1.4 on the two. The carries went one, two, six, two, five, two, four. Pittsburgh's first two snaps of the game were his — left end for one, left guard for two — ahead of an incompletion and a punt. The six was second and one at the Pittsburgh 35 with seven 35 left in the first quarter, up the middle, his one successful run and his one rushing first down. Two snaps later he caught a nine-yarder on second and three to the New England 43. Four carries before halftime for 11 yards, three after for 11. No third-down carry, no third-down target, nothing inside the New England 20. The play-by-play notes him returning to the game on his first carry of the third quarter without ever noting when or why he left; Travis Homer's two carries, for 14 two, both came inside the final five minutes of the first half.
Pittsburgh's 21 designed runs went 11 to Jaylen Warren, seven to Dowdle, two to Homer and one to Pat Freiermuth on a direct snap. Dowdle's last carry came with nine 54 left in the third quarter, and Warren had the four running back carries after it. Warren was targeted four times to Dowdle's two. Nine touches for 44 yards, against Warren's 13 for 77.
Back in June the preview's title for Dowdle was back-to-back thousand-yard seasons into a new committee, with the carry split against Warren called the whole question and Mike McCarthy, his old Dallas head coach, behind the signing. Week 1 was eight carries for 15 yards and two catches for six on five targets. Sunday the carries stayed about where they were, seven, and the yards per touch got better: 44 on nine touches against 21 on 10. The running itself has not: one successful carry in each game, two of 15. Eight carries to 10, then seven to 11 — the committee is real and it tilts a little toward Warren. Two games settle little. Pittsburgh is home to the Bengals on Sunday the 20-seventh.
_Data via nflverse._
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