Arthur Smith is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ newest offensive coordinator. And what a crucial year it is to get this offense sorted out. While results will ultimately tell whether or not Smith was the right hire, it’s important to know who the team is getting. The person and the coach.
Overall results can shed some light and football is a results-oriented business. That’s just how it goes. But repeating the broad-based numbers won’t tell the full story. Each year and team is its own. There’s value in that, to a degree, but I wanted to take this breakdown to a different level.
Here’s Arthur Smith. We’ll break this article up into two sections. Smith the person, his background, coaching journey, and personality. And Smith the coach. His philosophy, his scheme, what he values. I’ve come across an amazing coaching clinic with more information than I ever expected to find on Smith’s belief system as a coach that will be of tremendous help once the season starts.
This article is not to claim Pittsburgh made a good or bad hire. It’s to lay out all the information I can give you to understand the hire, the person, the philosophy, and how things could look in 2024.
We’ll follow this up with more analysis and takeaways, especially in regard to how this applies to the Steelers, in the coming days and weeks.
Arthur Smith The Person
Smith was born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1982, meaning he’ll turn 42 by the start of the 2024 season. He’s the son of Frederick W. Smith, a Marine who served two tours in Vietnam. But he’s best known for being the founder of FedEx, CEO until stepping down in June 2022. With a net worth north of $5 billion, some might think that Smith grew up as the spoiled rich kid.
To hear it from those who know him, nothing could be further from the truth. Every story on him is the same. Smith is an incredibly hard worker who worked his way up the ladder from low man on the totem pole to become an NFL head coach and now the Steelers’ offensive coordinator. We’ll talk about that more shortly.
Supporting the military remains important to Smith. In 2022 and 2023, he was the Falcons’ Salute to Service Nominee, visiting local military bases and making overseas USO trips.
Smith hasn’t talked about his dad much publicly but shared this with the Atlanta Falcons’ website in 2021.
“You talk about leadership and management, we talk all the time. We talk several times a week, at night on my way home from work, some of the best conversations I think I have all week about life and different issues. But he’s been a great father to me, so it’s more that relationship. A lot of it’s just observing, listening. I think I’ve been exposed to a lot of things growing up that weren’t normal, but you didn’t know any different. So I’ve been very fortunate in that regard.”
Smith moved to the Baltimore area in high school, playing his high school football there. He was a multi-sport athlete, also playing lacrosse, basketball, and track and field. In college, he became an offensive lineman for the North Carolina Tar Heels (here’s his photo and bio from 2005) where he was teammates with future Steelers RB Willie Parker. Neither played much. Smith was slated to have a role but back-to-back foot injuries in 2002 and 2003 derailed his career. He started against Syracuse in 2002 before getting hurt and essentially didn’t play much, if at all, again.
He quickly transitioned into the coaching side of things. Hired as a grad assistant for North Carolina in 2006, he worked as a video assistant and helped out in the offensive line room.
Smith made the jump to the NFL in 2007, hired by the Washington Redskins as their defensive quality control coach (essentially the lowest rung of the coaching staff). His father’s connections likely helped out here. His dad was a minority owner in the team while head coach Joe Gibbs’ NASCAR team, Joe Gibbs Racing, had a partnership with FedEx. Even Washington’s stadium is called FedEx Field. Quality control coaches do whatever is asked of them, be it advanced game planning or special assignments. Once, he had to present to the Redskins’ offense a report he filed on the opposition’s screen and gadget/trick plays.
Smith spent two years in that role before leaving. It’s unclear how he spent 2009 but in 2010, he was hired at Ole Miss as an intern and defensive assistant.
He got back into the NFL in 2011 with the Tennessee Titans. Interviewed by Mike Munchak, Smith saw the chance to reunite with Jerry Gray, whom he coached with in Washington. Munchak gave him the same job he had in Washington – defensive quality control coach. Like Washington, he had different projects he had to present to the team, once citing a report on first- and second-down tendencies. He flipped to the offensive side of the ball the following year. After outlining his plan to become a coordinator, Munchak recommended he switch to offense, especially with his background playing o-line in college.
“I kind of told [Munchak] my long-term goals, and he thought it’d be good for me to move back over to offense, which I had played and started out as a GA,” Smith said in a 2021 ESPN feature.
From there, he moved up the ranks. Offensive quality control coach in 2012, Assistant o-line coach in 2013, Assistant tight ends coach from 2014 to midway through 2015 when he replaced Mike Mularkey to lead that group after Mularkey was promoted to interim head coach. Smith remained as the head tight ends coach through 2018 until he was named offensive coordinator in 2019. His philosophy of becoming a tight ends coach, despite having an o-line background, was prescient. Coaches with that background have been given extra value in recent years, the thought being they work with every aspect of an offense. Tight ends run block, pass protect, and run routes, and a tight ends coach has to know how the entire offense works, not just one section of it.
“To [eventually] be a coordinator, I thought at least if you’re in the tight end room you can be involved in everything, kind of get your fits with the line and then the passing game,” Smith told ESPN.
What’s especially remarkable is Smith went through four different head-coaching regimes. The Mike Munchak era, the Ken Whisenhunt era, the Mike Mularkey era (a lot of ex-Steelers’ coaches here, Smith also worked with Dick LeBeau and Deshea Townsend in the Titans’ building), and the Mike Vrabel era. Surviving that kind of turnover might be unprecedented. When Vrabel was hired as head coach in 2018, Mularkey – then out of coaching – personally called Vrabel and convinced him to keep Smith onboard. He was just one of two coaches Vrabel kept, STs Coordinator Craig Aukerman the other.
When Matt LaFleur left to become the Green Bay Packers’ head coach ahead of the 2019 season, he wanted to take Smith with him. But he knew the Titans weren’t going to allow that to happen. And it was Mularkey again calling Vrabel, urging him to promote Smith to offensive coordinator. Vrabel did. If you’re wondering, Mularkey retired in 2020 so he’s not going to be in the mix to return to Pittsburgh with Smith.
Everything I found on Smith describes him as a tireless worker. Not someone living off his dad’s wealth. Smith’s high school coach Dan Paro described him as a “one-speed” player who had to be reined in during practice so he didn’t hurt his teammates. Whoa, not sic ’em, you might say.
“He loved the grind,” Paro said in that above ESPN piece. “He loved the process. He loved the traditions. I think that’s everything. He’s the kid who loved to go to practice. A lot of guys don’t like that.”
His Tar Heels head coach, John Bunting, came to a similar conclusion, this via the Detroit Free Press in December of 2020, shortly before Smith became a head coach.
“You know who his dad is, so he was born with that silver spoon, but he never, ever was anything but a hard worker, a gentleman and a tough guy,” Bunting said. “Fitting for an offensive lineman. He had a couple injuries. He played a little bit, not a lot, but when it came to him asking me to have him as a graduate assistant, I jumped at that because I knew that he would be super dedicated and committed to what we were doing.”
And here’s what LaFleur told Titans reporter Paul Kuharsky in the same interview, admitting he wanted Smith to come to Green Bay.
“He’s a grinder. He’s going to work his tail off. I can’t tell you how many times this last year he would be there with us after midnight, and he’d be [back] there at 5:00 in the morning,” LaFleur said. “He’s incredibly intelligent. I think he’s got such a great overall knowledge of football.”
When Smith replaced LaFleur as the Titans’ offensive coordinator in 2019, Vrabel praised his tireless work ethic.
“I was impressed throughout the season in gameplan meetings with his ideas, in-game with his understanding of situations and the ability to get the most out of his position group,” Vrabel said via the team’s website. “We spent a good bit of time last week talking about this opportunity. He has a great deal of familiarity with our players, and the continuity of the offense will allow our players to continue to develop and improve.”
LaFleur’s exit made Smith an easy promotion, but a CBS Sports report indicated that had LaFleur not gotten a head coaching job and stayed in Tennessee, Smith might’ve been made play caller for the 2019 season anyway.
In his first game as offensive coordinator, the Titans blew out the Cleveland Browns, 43-13. TE Delanie Walker caught a pair of touchdown passes and in a gesture after his first game as OC, Smith was given a game ball.
His success in Tennessee, leading a top-10 scoring offense in both years, led to Smith becoming the Atlanta Falcons’ head coach ahead of the 2021 season. His three years there weren’t pretty, finishing 7-10 every single season, and the Falcons finished 26th in scoring offense twice, 15th as their “best.” He was fired after losing four of his final five games in a weak NFC South, including two blowout losses to finish the year that included him yelling at New Orleans Saints Coach Dennis Allen for a victory formation touchdown run.
Smith has been known to be a hot head and offer snark to reporters. In May 2022, he tersely dismissed the idea of teams tanking, calling the conversation a waste of everyone’s time. Which in fairness, is a pretty poor topic to broach with an NFL head coach.
This past November, he shot back at Kurt Warner after Warner criticized his play calling, saying Warner could use all of his money to go solve the world’s problems. And there was his rudderless handling of the Falcons’ quarterback situation this season, flip-flopping between Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke. At one point, Smith said Ridder would start the rest of the year before benching him weeks later. It led Terry Bradshaw to torch Smith, saying he has no respect for liars and that he had wronged Ridder. It’s likely Smith’s decision was influenced by ownership but still, it was an ugly look as the Falcons spiraled toward their finish.
Overall, players have responded well to Smith’s coaching. Now-retired OT Taylor Lewan shared this tweet after Smith was promoted to OC in 2019, saying there was no one more deserving. QB Marcus Mariota also offered plenty of praise around the same time.
“It’s been a true blessing to have gotten to know him and I’m excited to work with him,” he told the Titans’ Jim Wyatt. “His ability to consistently get our guys prepared week in and week out has been impressive. I’m looking forward to working with him in his new role.”
Arthur Smith The Play Caller
Okay, let’s delve into Smith’s philosophy and play calling. Smith didn’t begin calling plays until becoming the Titans’ offensive coordinator in 2019, but he was heavily involved in the team’s game planning for at least the year prior. As outlined by Kuharsky in the article referenced earlier, Smith presented the team’s weekly red zone plan in 2018.
“While he has no play-calling experience, he is not unfamiliar with presenting to the entire offense. Last year he presented red zone offense for LaFleur, who was very complimentary of his work.”
It’s worth noting that the Titans finished just 23rd in red zone offense in 2018, though they were No. 1 and No. 2 leaguewide with Smith as their offensive coordinator in 2019 and 2020. Pittsburgh has struggled to field a good red zone offense over the last decade.
Smith doesn’t come directly from the Kyle Shanahan tree but given his time spent with LaFleur, though it was only a year, there’s an indirect relationship. But Mularkey once said Smith was running his offense, which Mularkey of course ran in Pittsburgh as offensive coordinator from 2001-03.
“He likes to run the ball, which the reason we get along so well is because he’s basically running my same offense,” Mularkey told the Detroit Free Press. “He may be using the Kyle Shanahan mentality and LaFleur and whatever that offense is called, but he’s using what we did and that was beat the tar out of people.”
I was planning to piece together nuggets from Smith’s tenure throughout the rest of this post. But I stumbled across a coaching clinic Smith held early in his Falcons’ head coaching career. Smith broke down his first- and second-down packages and philosophy and other wisdom and approach to the game. I’ll dedicate the rest of this post to that. It’s great information.
Wide Zone Run Scheme
As we’ve mentioned a handful of times, Smith is rooted in a wide zone/outside run background. That began with Joe Gibbs and his time in Washington, Smith’s first NFL coaching stop. But he puts his own spin on the wide zone, still desiring to be physical and getting upfield, not just flowing down the line laterally and letting the back pick the right lane.
“Physical wide zone team. Not going to run it to the sideline,” Smith said in the clinic.
His outside zone is his 18-19 game. Eighteen is wide zones to the right, 19 wide zones to the left. And he’ll do it out of single or two back. Expect this team to add a designated fullback (or potentially shift Connor Heyward in that role but a new addition feels more likely). In Atlanta, FB Keith Smith logged between 185-257 snaps on offense, a little more than 20 percent of the offense’s snaps, from 2021 to 2023. In 2020 at Tennessee, Khari Blasingame logged 16 percent of the Titans’ snaps.
Here is 19 Wide Zone out of single back.
Smith’s desire to be physical runs deep. It’s a core belief and he doesn’t think he can win without his offense having that trait. No matter the scheme or call, his group must be physical, tough, finish, and play with great effort and a selfless attitude.
“We preach effort and finish,” he said. “And I’ll die on this hill.”
He noted that it takes all 11 men to be a good running team right down to the receivers blocking (an issue in Pittsburgh, I know) and the quarterback carrying out a great fake. The quarterback also absorbs a lot of responsibility of getting the offense into the right run play. Smith says they will package plays, have two calls, and sometimes it’s two different runs.
In this example from the clinic, there’s a wide zone and a duo (man blocking) call with QB Ryan Tannehill “canning” or “killing” the initial zone call and getting the Titans into the duo run. Derrick Henry takes it to the house.
Watch Tannehill grab his helmet to “can” the play and check into the Duo. Because both plays are called in the huddle, all the offense has to hear is the can/kill call to know Tannehill is switching to the second play.
(I have blurred out the actual play call in the top left corner of these clips given that I’m sure Smith doesn’t want exact play calls on our fun little blog – that’s a fair and right thing to do given the wealth of information we’re getting overall).
“Just trying to win one gap at a time,” Smith said of his scheme.
Smith is big into shifts and motions, often using both on one play. It was something Matt Canada did but without much success and often it felt like it had no purpose. Smith showed one clip of heavy 13 personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs) and initially aligning in empty before condensing back into a heavy/tight split. And then running play-action off it.
He’s big on teammates straining and showing extra effort to make blocks downfield. He calls these blocks by receivers to spring running backs for good to great runs “RBIs” or “assists” and knows how crucial they are to making a play work. Same applies in the passing game, Smith once saying his favorite play of the year was a downfield block Titans WR Corey Davis made to spring A.J. Brown the rest of the way for a touchdown.
As Dave Bryan pointed out in his great post Tuesday night, the numbers back up Smith’s desire to be a zone-based team. How that meshes with Pittsburgh will be interesting as the Steelers were an extremely zone-heavy team the first month of last year with a run game that went nowhere. Once the Steelers began to run more gap and power concepts (they still ran zone and got the ball outside on Crack/Zorro Toss), their run game came alive. This pairing and meshing will be critical to Smith and the team’s success.
Duo-Run Scheme
Wide zone is Smith’s bread and butter but it’s not the only thing he runs. He made sure to point out the need to match his scheme to the personnel and that he wasn’t going to do one thing and one thing only.
Duo is a man-blocking scheme, a downhill attack with double-teams up front. Same idea of being physical and tough and winning up front. Smith’s goal is to instill confidence in his offensive linemen to make them even better. Duo is the run I showed above, Henry’s long touchdown. Every team runs it, and the Steelers will in 2024.
Gap-Run Scheme
Smith’s clinic didn’t feature any gap runs. His only comment about it was this:
“Physical wide zone. We’ll run some gap scheme stuff.”
Formation-wise in Atlanta, he was a heavy personnel type of team. No team ran fewer 11 personnel (three receiver sets) as the Falcons last season. As a refresher, here are their 2023 personnel groupings, rates, and rankings:
12 Personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs): 1st in NFL (42 percent)
22 Personnel (2 RBs, 2 TEs): 2nd in NFL (10 percent)
13 Personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs): 3rd in NFL (9 percent)
21 Personnel (2 RBs, 1 TE): 5th in NFL (20 percent)
11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE): 32nd in NFL (17 percent)
Lots of fullback/two running backs, accounting for 30 percent of their snaps. Some of that may have been Pony with two true running backs also.
Throughout the clinic, Smith harped on wide receivers blocking and getting involved. Some were big guys but there were smaller guys doing their job and pitching in too. Smith is partly influenced by the LaFleur/Shanahan background. A common theme with those offenses (and others, like Sean McVay’s) are tight/condensed splits. Receivers in tight toward the formation as opposed to being spread out wide.
I don’t have complete data for 2023 but part way through 2022, the Falcons had the tightest splits in football. The Steelers, as Ben Fennell’s tweet shows, had the widest splits.
In 2021, Smith’s first year in Atlanta and Canada’s first year as OC in Pittsburgh, the Falcons finished with the seventh-tightest splits. The Steelers had the league’s fifth-widest splits.
we talking formation width?
2021 offenses: pic.twitter.com/GK8C4eLwaI
— Steven Ruiz (@theStevenRuiz) September 11, 2022
Expect the Steelers’ splits to get a whole lot tighter. And expect any loafing by the Steelers’ receivers to be deemed unacceptable.
Play Passes
The passing portion of his clinic was dedicated to play passes, aka play-action. Smith, like many coaches, believes in marrying the run and pass game so defenses can’t differentiate between the two. He builds the pass game off his base run-game concepts.
“When you build your run packages, you build your play pass. It’s gotta look the same,” Smith said.
“How do we create space? How do we exploit it?” he said moments later.
Quarterback keepers, bootlegs/rollouts/waggles are among his most popular play-pass concept and work off his wide-zone run game. He’s a proponent of changing the launch point and making it difficult for defenders to consistently attack the same spot. Late in the clinic, he said his goal was to “frustrate” top defensive linemen, never sure if they’re getting run or pass, and creating a mental game to slow them down. He also said consistently calling straight drop backs is bad for a quarterback and bad for an offensive line. The quarterback gets hit and hurt and the o-line loses confidence.
An example of their Keeper play pass off wide-zone action (you’ll see the block from Davis I mentioned earlier in this clip).
Play-action is also built off their duo game. Often with crossers, digs, and glance (slant) routes, Smith showing A.J. Brown’s long 73-yard touchdown against Pittsburgh in 2020. That was part of their Duo play pass looks and it jump-started a near comeback.
Another example of their Duo play pass. Under center, which the Titans often were (the Falcons, less so once Matt Ryan was traded and they turned to Marcus Mariota/Desmond Ridder/Taylor Heinicke); that rate will likely tick up in Pittsburgh. Ditto with their play-action rate. That should spike big time.
This is the core of Arthur Smith’s offense. While Pittsburgh may have tweaks to his offense — each team is different and it’s clear Smith is coming into an offense that’s already built and not looking to be overhauled completely — this will be the bedrock on which he builds it. Wide zone, duo runs, play-action looks off both. This is his first- and second-down offense in a nutshell.
Other Topics
Going to bullet point other key takeaways Smith mentioned throughout the session.
– Philosophically, he encourages explaining to players the “why.” Not just “what” the coaches doing but “why” they’re doing it. It helps create buy-in and understanding. Smith said coaches are teachers first. Here were his keys to teaching and leading.
– He doesn’t like practicing a play against just one certain look. Because you might not get that look in the game. He’ll repeat his fundamentals over and over in practice. He told the story of Derrick Henry’s goal-line touchdown pop pass against Baltimore, an upset Divisional Round win for the Titans. Smith had been repping that play and had it for the previous seven-to-eight weeks. But the Titans kept working at it in practice, admitting some of the early attempts were ugly, until they got it right and until they found the right time to call it. And it worked perfectly.
– “We need to be brilliant in the basics,” Smith said early in the clinic. His version of Mike Tomlin’s “do routine things routinely.”
– Smith said his goal is to play the best players. Doesn’t matter how much money they make, doesn’t matter if they were undrafted, the best guys play. He gave countless examples of players in Tennessee who lived that. WR Khalif Raymond as a small WR from Holy Cross; UDFA guard Aaron Brewer; UDFA WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. Smith won’t have the control in Pittsburgh he did in Atlanta since he no longer a head coach, but he believes you have to prove to players the best guys truly get the chances to make plays. No politics involved.
Not going to “coddle the stars,” were his words.
– He doesn’t believe in panicking mid-game or trying to change his style midseason. He says you’ll start “grab bagging” and make the situation even worse (though it sorta felt like that’s how things went in Atlanta last year).
– His physical, run-based approach works, he says, because opposing defenses wear down by season’s end. And it’ll make his offense, already physical and run-heavy, even more effective.
– He prefers his offensive linemen to be a “little bit heavier” and “thicker” and to be physical run blockers. He also values hip flexibility, bend, and “speed off the ball.” He wants guys who are big and explosive. He used 315-pound Rodger Saffold as his ideal lineman in size and style.
– He distilled what he’s looking for in a lineman into three traits: speed, finish, and toughness. He noted it’s “hard to change guys” who don’t have the right attitude or approach. You are who you are.
– In the red zone, Smith still wants to run the ball. He built the league’s best red zone offenses in Tennessee, though Atlanta finished 24th in 2021 and 29th in 2023 (the Falcons were 14th in 2022). He likes using Hi-Lo concepts near the goal line, especially from 3×1 looks, often with No. 3 running a shallow cross and No. 1 a basic/in-route over the top. Or he’ll run half-field reads and combination routes like spot/snag concepts (corner/curl/back fast to the flat).
He says defenses have to simplify coverages in the red zone, which makes them easier to game plan against. He also likes going empty and spreading things out in the red zone while having his “zero beaters” (all-out blitz/Cover 0) ready.
He does not like fade passes and 1v1 throws in the red zone, calling them inefficient.
– He admitted going from Tennessee to Atlanta that not everything would carry over. But the Titans and Steelers’ offenses have relatively similar talent so I think you’ll see things line up relatively well, though we’ll see about the gap-scheme percentage.
– One thing I particularly liked was his philosophy in “gotta have it” moments. He started off by saying that in key situations, when the pressure is on, he would think back to Joe Gibbs/Bill Walsh’s mantra of “go with what they know.” As in, go with your core calls the players have run all year as opposed to something practiced far less often. Make it so the players are confident and comfortable with the call. He credits Gibbs as a huge coaching influence and mentor, even more so after he departed Washington at the start of his coaching career.
On the day before the game, Saturdays for a Sunday game, he will get together with his offensive staff to come up with his section of “gotta have it” plays, a specific section built into his play sheet. Those calls are for third and fourth down, the moments when the team must convert. It’s something I didn’t feel Matt Canada had or didn’t do a good job with, at the very least.
– He credited Titans center Ben Jones for changing the culture in Tennessee. He knew Jones didn’t have the prototypical build of an NFL lineman but called him the toughest and smartest player he’d been around. We’ll see if Pittsburgh looks for a center in the draft.
– Really interesting answer here. Smith was asked what he does with players who don’t buy into the team’s culture.
“We won’t play them,” he said. “I’ll look to get guys out of there.”
Granted, Smith said that in a head-coaching capacity where he exerted more control over roster building and playing time but said his tight relationship with then-GM Jon Robinson in Tennessee also backed up that philosophy. You don’t buy in? You don’t play.
– But Smith also noted that if he trusts a guy and they make a mistake, he’ll show belief in them.
“I’ll go right back to them,” Smith said when given the hypothetical of a receiver dropping a pass.
When a receiver has a bad play, he’ll throw it to him again. If the line is struggling, he’ll call a keeper/boot to give them an “easy” play and regain some confidence.
– As a quick aside, I wonder if slot receiver will matter far less in Pittsburgh. With heavier personnel and condensed splits, the slot receiver didn’t really exist in Tennessee or Atlanta. In our recent slot study over the last two years, the Falcons tied for last in targets by receivers aligned in the slot, 143, 37 less than the Steelers’ low mark. I’ve advocated for a slot receiver upgrade but with the Smith hire, it may matter less.
– Smith was asked what he’s looking for in a tight end. He says they don’t have to be amazing blockers but willing and competent. They have to be able to displace the SAM linebacker on wide zone. Smith says they can’t be a team that only runs “open” as in, to the weak side and away from the tight end. He has to be able to run strong side.
For TE Pat Freiermuth, that means looking more like the blocker he was at the end of the year than the beginning. And while Darnell Washington has the size and strength to block, his ability to snap out of his stance on wide zone runs will be key. His snap timing was an issue as a rookie.
– In Atlanta, Smith took heat for not leaning on his top weapons enough, especially in the red zone. While not talking about that directly, he said his red zone goal is to make everyone believe they could get the football and score in any game. He praised how many players scored touchdowns in Tennessee, including two offensive linemen. A similar story seemed to apply in Atlanta. In 2023, eight different players caught touchdown passes despite the Falcons’ weak scoring output. In Pittsburgh, only four players had receiving scores. Perhaps that’s one reason for his red zone approach.
– Smith didn’t mention it specifically but with his talk about linemen catching touchdowns, running backs throwing touchdown passes, he certainly doesn’t seem to be against trick plays, especially in the low red zone. In many ways, and I made this reference before, he’s Mike Mularkey. Old school and run-heavy personnel and not afraid to throw some gadgets in there to keep a defense on its toes.
– He called Mike Munchak one of the best offensive line coaches in the game.
– And finally, when asked how other coaches can climb up the coaching ladder like he did, grad assistant to head coach, his answer was simple.
“Be the best damn guy you can be at the job you’ve been given.”
Hopefully he’s that guy as offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Thanks for reading. We’ll have more analysis and thoughts and maybe some of the other breakdowns I was preparing to dive into before coming across this clinic. It’s 3 AM and we’re over 5,000 words in. This should be a good starter in getting to understand Arthur Smith.
