Even with new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith in the fold and two dynamic quarterbacks in Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, who both seem like major improvements over what was in place last season at the position, the Pittsburgh Steelers might be in for another tough year offensively.
At least, that’s what former NFL quarterback and current “QB School” analyst JT O’Sullivan believes.
In a recent livestream episode on the show’s YouTube channel, O’Sullivan stated that the Steelers are “in a tough spot” both at quarterback and with the schedule overall, which was released last Wednesday and has the Steelers staring down an absolute gauntlet of a final eight weeks of the season.
“I was talking to somebody yesterday about the Steelers offense. They were really complimentary about Arthur Smith. I mean, we’ll see what it looks like. I honestly have no predictions….I think the Steelers are in a tough spot,” O’Sullivan said, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “Would I say I’m surprised if it works out really well for anybody in Pittsburgh playing quarterback with Arthur Smith, with what it looked like in Atlanta? Now, what it looked like in Tennessee? Okay, maybe it’s a better fit coordinator wise or whatever.
“But, I will say this just selfishly, if Justin Fields starts playing in Pittsburgh, we’re gonna be watching a lot of Pittsburgh film.”
O’Sullivan, as was made quite clear multiple times throughout the 2023 season on his YouTube channel, was not a fan of the way Smith ran his offense in Atlanta, making it challenging at times on the quarterbacks. That led to some breakdowns from O’Sullivan, one of which had him criticizing the scheme under Smith while analyzing former Falcons’ QB Desmond Ridder.
After being fired by the Falcons, Smith is in Pittsburgh and is back to being an offensive coordinator only — the role he had with the Tennessee Titans from 2018-20, which led to an explosive offense for the Titans that set franchise records.
The Steelers are hoping Smith can unlock that in Pittsburgh around a run-heavy approach also predicated on play-action passing.
But O’Sullivan has some concerns, and isn’t a huge believer in Russell Wilson, either, though he is a huge proponent of Fields. Often when discussing Fields, O’Sullivan has railed against what Fields had to work with in Chicago. With Wilson, he criticized Wilson’s inability to play with anticipation, which isn’t exactly something Fields has in his toolkit currently.
On paper, the Steelers appear to be in good shape with Smith calling plays, players loving the scheme, and two quarterbacks who seem like solid fits for Smith overall due to their dual-threat abilities and work in play-action. But Wilson doesn’t utilize the middle of the field much, which is a key area of the field in Smith’s scheme, and Fields is still a quarterback in need of quite bit of development at the NFL level to learn how to be a true pro quarterback.
That’s how Pittsburgh finds itself in a tough spot offensively with the coordinator and the quarterback position. It’s not a perfect fit, but the Steelers have leaned all the way into it, even bringing in a bunch of former Smith players in Atlanta to help the transition offensively.
We’ll see if it pays off, but the Steelers won’t get the benefit of playing an easy schedule in 2024 to help that transition.
