George Pickens has been effective in his first two seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, the same cannot be said about the Steelers offense as a whole. Whether it was bad quarterback play, bad play calling, both, or something else altogether, the Steelers’ offense has been dreadful for the last few years. According to Pickens, it seems like Arthur Smith is fixing a lot of those issues though.
In a video from the team’s website, Pickens was asked about Smith’s offense and if the Steelers are going to try to exploit mismatches more with him in charge.
“That’s the whole goal of it, to exploit defenses and mismatches,” Pickens said. “They can still play man, corners that travel. It’s really built for zone, and I think [Smith] is doing a really good job.”
Zone coverage has become more and more popular among NFL defenses, so being able to beat those kinds of looks will be important for the Steelers. Man coverage relies more on defenders simply being able to guard whatever player they’ve been assigned to. Zone coverage is a little more complicated, with multiple varieties to try to fool quarterbacks.
Pickens’ words show that Smith intends on making sure this offense can counteract zone defenses. Usually, a lot of that depends on the scheme of the offense and how well the quarterback can read a defense. If Russell Wilson earns the starting job, that shouldn’t be too hard. He isn’t as cerebral as Tom Brady, but he’s a veteran and he’s played against a lot of different defenses.
Under Matt Canada, the offense was often stagnant and ineffective. Part of that was because the scheme was poor. The middle of the field wasn’t used, play-action basically didn’t exist, situational football didn’t matter, and motion served no purpose. A good defense — man or zone — easily stopped the Steelers.
With Smith now running the show, most of those problems should be fixed. Smith’s goal is to attack the weakest part of the defense. Some plays on offense will be used to set up different plays later. It should feel like the Steelers offense is competent. The key will be execution. Smith might have a great game plan, but if players don’t execute, then it won’t matter.
