The Pittsburgh Steelers made their 2024 offensive coordinator decision, bringing on former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith. His resume aligns with the goals Pittsburgh aspires to build upon. This includes more consistent success on the ground, utilizing heavy personnel, and the hire makes a lot of sense.
Today, I wanted to look at an element that Smith will hopefully bring with him to Pittsburgh as well: play-action. Here’s a visual of 2023 play-action attempts and yards per attempt, with darker logos for the Falcons and Steelers to see how they fared:
The two teams were on the opposite ends of the spectrum, with Pittsburgh ranking dead last in play-action attempts this season (80), pairing this with a low 30th-ranked 6.5 YPA. So, not straining defenses over the middle or down the field compared to most teams in 2023. This felt like an untapped layer of the passing game that I have pointed out the last two seasons in my Steelers’ Passing Chart articles.
Then we see Atlanta, who were above the mean in each. Their 156 play-action attempts nearly doubled Pittsburgh’s, tied for seventh most league-wide, along with a 8.6 YPA (14th) that’s over two yards more than the Steelers 2023 average. This seems to be one of the factors that attracted Pittsburgh to Smith, and excited to hopefully see a big change in this regard from the black and gold in 2024.
Also, the vast majority of successful teams that were above average in play-action attempts are telling. In this year’s playoffs, 11 of the 14 qualifying teams had near or above average attempts (78.6-percent). Two playoff teams that were well below the mean were the Rams and 49ers, but each made up for it by ranking in the top five in YPA.
That leaves Pittsburgh, who were the only 2024 NFL postseason team to land below the mean in each. With such a reliance and need for the run game to be successful, leaning on play-action is a vital tool that several NFL offenses use well. For whatever reason, it has been avoided by Pittsburgh in comparison. Here’s to hoping for a jolt in 2024 with Smith calling the plays, including play-action.
Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
