The Pittsburgh Steelers are going through the process of an offensive overhaul this offseason. The team fired former offensive coordinator Matt Canada during the season and hired former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith to replace him early in the offseason. None of the three quarterbacks who played during the 2023 season are on the roster. Instead, the Steelers have three new quarterbacks: Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, and Kyle Allen.
There are still positions that need to be addressed during the offseason, too. The Steelers traded WR Diontae Johnson away and haven’t replaced him with a starting-caliber wide receiver yet. The organization also released C Mason Cole and hasn’t brought anyone in to replace him.
There is still work to be done for general manager Omar Khan in terms of acquiring talent. Then there’s Smith’s task of getting the offense all on the same page. Head coach Mike Tomlin sat down for a one-on-one interview with Rob King of Steelers.com at the NFL’s Annual League Meeting on Monday. The offense was the primary topic of conversation, and Tomlin covered his thoughts on Smith and the need for adaptation by both coaches and players.
“He’s adaptable,” Tomlin said. “I think we as coaches have to be adaptable. We can have a mindset about how we want to go about our business, but we better be light enough up on our feet to adapt that vision to fit personnel. Just competing against him over the number of years that I have, I’ve seen that adaptability based on personnel and he’s expressed that through this process. And so I’m really comfortable not only in terms of his core beliefs, but I’m also comfortable in terms of his adaptability to cater that to what’s best for the collective.”
Arthur Smith has a reputation as a run-oriented offensive mind. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, as he had Derrick Henry while coordinating the Tennessee Titans’ offense in 2019 and 2020. While Smith was head coach of the Falcons, the team drafted Bijan Robinson.
However, it’s narrow-minded to think of Smith as only a running game play-caller. During his tenure with the Titans, Smith took QB Ryan Tannehill to previously unseen heights in his career. Smith embraced play-action passing concepts and allowed Tannehill to utilize his athleticism to make plays on the ground.
Tomlin isn’t the only one who has noticed that. Wilson praised Smith for his “multiplicity” when it comes to his schemes and play calls during a sitdown interview with Missi Matthews for steelers.com.
So, will Smith be expected to cater to every single player when it comes to designing his offense? Tomlin praised Smith for his adaptability and expects the same from his players.
“I think initially, it’s probably the onus on the player to assimilate into the environment,” Tomlin said. But I just think the more time you spend with a player, the more you gain an understanding of what they’re capable of, what they do well, and what they don’t. And shame on you as a coach if you don’t work to highlight the things that they do well or work to minimize the things that they don’t.”
When it comes to being successful on the football field, both the coaches and the players have to be flexible. The coaches cannot be so regimented in their schemes that they fail to utilize their players to their best potential.
The players also cannot be so inflexible about what they like to do that they don’t work hard and make sacrifices for the team. The team works best when the coaches and the players are on the same page. No player above the scheme, but the scheme cannot be above the players in the scheme either.
Former Steelers TE Jace Sternberger said that in his limited time in Pittsburgh, he was confused as to why the Steelers’ offense did what it did under Canada, wondering “Why are we doing this?” and never getting an answer. Evidently, Canada did not care to get on the same page as his players, simply expecting them to get on his page without explanations as to what the point of the page was.
Arthur Smith apparently operates very differently, and both Tomlin and Wilson appreciate that. How it plays out on the field remains to be seen. However, it’s hard to argue with what’s being said so far.
