Arthur Smith is a run-centric offensive coordinator, or so his reputation informs us. It helps that he usually has a top-10, if not top-five run game every year, and the Pittsburgh Steelers hope he can install one here. But that reputation does a disservice to the completeness with which he views his offense, including working with wide receivers.
“He’s very involved with us. He runs our routes-on-air period”, WR Calvin Austin III said of Smith yesterday, via the team’s website. “He knows what he wants to see from us, running off the ball. He always is around, talking to us. We’re just in shorts and stuff, it’s a lot of running and stuff with the receivers, so he’s always pushing us, encouraging us, just continue to help us, because we know we’ve got his full confidence”.
The Steelers hired Arthur Smith as their new offensive coordinator this offseason, having moved on from Matt Canada. The three-year Canada tenure lasted far too long for the liking of most, which resulted in his in-season firing. It was the first time the Steelers ever fired a coordinator in-season in their history.
They don’t expect to have to do that again with Smith, but they need him to run a complete offense. While they are confident he can get the run game going, he also needs to resurrect the passing game. Trading a starting wide receiver in Diontae Johnson was counterintuitive to those efforts, but they have a plan.
That plan, of course, centers around George Pickens as the focal point of the offense. Smith’s offenses also find more work for the tight ends and running backs in the passing game, which the Steelers can afford with the likes of Pat Freiermuth, Connor Heyward, Najee Harris, and Jaylen Warren.
The Steelers are also shuffling the wide receiver position, with a number of options accumulated over the offseason. With Calvin Austin III returning, they added veterans in Scotty Miller, Van Jefferson, and Quez Watkins. The former two have both worked under Smith in the past. The team also drafted Roman Wilson in the third round, who is a potential Day-One contributor this year.
It is interesting to hear how hands-on Smith is with the wide receivers, though, even at this juncture. I’m gathering that it is a meaningful departure to how Canada ran things, given that Austin found it notable. He went through two offseasons with Canada, but it is the run-first coordinator who is more hands-on.
And to be clear, we are not talking about blocking drills here and things like that. Arthur Smith is watching their routes and making sure that they have him what he is looking for to execute his plays as they are designed.
None of this means that the passing game will actually be any good. The quarterbacks are still the quarterbacks, and the wide receivers are still the wide receivers. Nobody magically gets better just because their coordinator is watching them closely. But Smith is doing everything in his power to carve out every aspect of this offense in his image, and that includes some hands-on work with the wide receivers and their routes.
