PHOTO BY KARL ROSER | PITTSBURGH STEELERS

Despite their escape from New York, and the dramatic role quarterback Aaron Rodgers played in the opener, the Steelers emerged with concerns that shouldn’t be rationalized merely as “indicative of week one-like football.”

Some of what was amiss amid the Steelers’ 34-32 win over the Jets qualified as such, as maintained by head coach Mike Tomlin.

But at least one aspect of the operation loomed as a potential deal-breaker, even after just one game.

That would be the run defense.

The Steelers got run over again by the Jets, just as they did last January in the playoffs by the Ravens.

Since that time, the Steelers have drafted three front-seven defenders (defensive linemen Derrick Harmon and Yahya Black and outside linebacker Jack Sawyer), signed a defensive back with a reputation for bringing physicality from the slot-cornerback position (Jalen Ramsey), swapped starters at inside linebacker (speedy Payton Wilson taking over for thumper Elandon Roberts), tweaked the scheme and, last but not least, talked incessantly about how this year would be different as it related to stopping the run.

“We down to get grimy,” nose tackle Keeanu Benton insisted before the Jets game.

Instead, they got gouged and gashed.

Here we go … again.

The Jets didn’t pile up 299 yards on the ground against the Steelers’ run defense, as the Ravens had. But this, just like that, was embarrassing.

The numbers don’t lie, and 182 rushing yards hemorrhaged, a 4.7-yard average per carry conceded and three rushing touchdowns surrendered ought to raise eyebrows, if not sound an alarm.

Tomlin had emphasized in advance the need for his defenders to “whup blocks and make tackles.”

It didn’t happen.

Nor will the return of Harmon, the Steelers’ no. 1 pick, make it happen. Harmon is still at least a week away from contributing what he can toward what was deemed lacking along the defensive front a season ago.

Still, it’s not as if the Steelers will be adding Mean Joe Greene or Aaron Donald once Harmon eventually gets healthy.

Other issues to be addressed sooner rather than later include the Steelers’ inability to run the ball and the lack of protection they provided for Rodgers, who at 41 got sacked four times and was hit way too much. Left tackle Broderick Jones was the chief culprit in that regard, but far from the only problem up front.

Still, you can work around such things. But it’s hard to work around a stampede.

The silver lining amid the growing storm is the Steelers found a way to dig in and stop the run against the Jets when they absolutely, positively had to stop them.

The New York possession that commenced with 5:21 left in regulation and the Jets ahead, 32-31, consisted of a 5-yard pass and then a 2-yard carry by running back Breece Hall and a 2-yard loss by quarterback Justin Fields on a read/option-keeper.

That last play, the one that got the ball back for the Steelers with enough time to set up Chris Boswell for his 60-yard, game-winning field goal, was the same one on which Fields had high-stepped into the end zone on the way to a walk-in touchdown that gave the Jets the lead on fourth-and-goal from the Steelers’ 1-yard line moments earlier.

This time, with the game on the line, the Steelers stopped him. They went from inept to impenetrable.

So it can be done.

“It’s all about will at that point,” Steelers safety Juan Thornhill insisted.

Where there’s a will there’s a way?

The Steelers had better hope so. The Seahawks team that visits Acrisure Stadium on Sunday loves to run the ball. And even if the Seahawks didn’t, they’d run it against the Steelers.

Every team that plays the Steelers is going to take a page from the Ravens’ and the Jets’ playbooks — because why wouldn’t they?

Given the way last season ended, and this one has begun, the Steelers’ vulnerability trying to play run defense isn’t a week one-like outlier; it’s who they are.

And it’ll be an every week-like proposition until the Steelers once and for all get it fixed.