New Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith strikes a different note than his predecessor Matt Canada in a number of key ways. Alex Kozora laid many of them out yesterday in his big book on Smith, but I wanted to elaborate on one point that jumped out to me. It comes down to philosophy, understanding. And Smith has had a big-picture mind for the game before he ever called plays.
Smith is a teacher, whereas Canada is a general. You don’t ask a general why you’re doing something; you just do it. Smith wants you to know why he is asking you to do something so that you can best execute it. Refer to Kozora’s article in which Smith talks about “the ‘why’”.
He offers three principles of the value of communicating the meaning behind a play. The third and last is, in my opinion, the biggest. It creates buy-in from the players. Players who believe in what they’re running will execute at a higher level. And you can’t buy into what you’re doing if you don’t know why you’re doing it. Not without a gun to your head.
It’s all tied into establishing a firm identity. As you may recall, Steelers players and coaches spent much of the past two seasons asking and being asked questions about their identity. Head coach Mike Tomlin called declaring an identity in October a “stupid endeavor”. Weeks earlier, QB Kenny Pickett said that the Steelers didn’t even have one.
So what was an ongoing problem under Canada seems to be a priority for Smith. He believes in not just the establishment of a clear identity, once you find it, but cultivating it and educating. That didn’t seem to be Canada’s strength.
Remember former Steelers TE Jace Sternberger describing his brief time in Pittsburgh under Canada? “The details on the assignment were nothing. It was literally like, ‘five yards. You’re running the stick’”, he said. “Going to Pittsburgh was harder to learn…because I’m like, ‘Why are we doing this? What’s the reasoning behind it?’”.
The mileage will vary from player to player. Not everybody needs to understand what their responsibility is beyond the rote mechanism of the play. But I can only see benefits in clear communication behind the function of an assignment.
The better you understand why you’re being asked to do something, the better you understand what you’re being asked. The better you understand how to improvise when the play breaks down and adapt to the circumstances. Smith has a quote on that, too.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”, he says. It reminds me of Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera. By and large, he had one pitch, but he mastered it to the point of perfection. He could put it anywhere he wanted in any context, and hitters were lucky to make contact.
Another issue with the Steelers generally, but especially the offense, comes to mind. How many times over the past two seasons did we listen to players talk about them struggling because the opposition threw a different look at them they weren’t expecting?
Smith’s philosophy, in evident contrast to Canada, prioritizes that kind of flexibility. He believes in running plays against a diversity of looks because that’s not how the defense is going to play you in-game. Cincinnati Bengals QB Jake Browning talked about practicing against different looks last season and what a big difference it made.
