The offense struggled to put points on the board tonight due to sloppy play and execution errors, but that doesn’t mean the scheme and play design was bad. I thought Arthur Smith called a solid game in his Pittsburgh Steelers debut. One example of that was the Steelers’ first touchdown of the game to Connor Heyward.
“Art has a really good play call and design down there,” Heyward said in a video posted by Steelers Live on X. Rodney [Williams] did a good job of picking and the DBs’ eyes kind of were inside, and I snuck to the flat. Coach always talks about not getting beat to the flat.”
Below is a clip of the play. Notice how the Steelers utilize play-action to draw the safety toward the line of scrimmage. As Heyward mentioned, he read the defenders’ eyes to see they were looking inside to stop the run before slipping into the flats.
Rodney Williams is aligned off the line of scrimmage as the farthest player outside and down blocks to sell the play-action and free up Heyward before running a drag route across the middle of the field. That drag route forced the corner to clear out across the field with Williams while Heyward slipped out with the safety cheating inside to stop the run.
It was 1st and goal, so the defense is already thinking it needs to stop the run first and foremost. The Steelers have OT Tyler Beach lined up outside the tackle as an extra tight end in a tight split with Heyward and Williams. All these point to a run, which is what sets up the play-action pass so well. Smith’s system is bringing back play-action passing, which has been missing from this offense for years. And, of course, a strong running game fuels a strong play-action passing game as defenders sell out to stop the run.
Teams barely game plan and focus on implementing the basics of their offense during the early preseason games. But this was a perfect example of the types of concepts that build off each other within Smith’s overall scheme.
