The rollout of new Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s offense has not gone well so far. The team has only scored 15 points through the first two games, most of it with third-stringers. But looks can be deceiving when it comes to evaluating preseason results, Smith warned on Tuesday.
“If you look at the history of the preseason as you’re mixing and matching, it is more about individual evaluation”, Smith said about the Steelers’ offensive production, via transcript provided by the team’s media department. “We’ve got a unique situation with the quarterbacks, … [and] that evaluation is more important”.
Smith refers, of course, to Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, both of whom the Steelers acquired this offseason. The entire quarterback room is new, as is Smith, and much of the offensive line and receiver rooms. There is a lot of change, and a lot that the Steelers want to learn about both individuals and groups.
“If you’re not objective and you’re not real with people, you’re still not working on what needs to be fixed, and that’s going to get exposed in Week 1. So that’s why I said it can distort your reality, good or bad”, the Steelers offensive coordinator added. Smith once again repeated that it’s about the evaluation first and foremost.
But one would hope that the evaluation would produce a finer-looking product on the field. With how poor the Arthur Smith Steelers offense debuted, one would have to assume that the evaluation didn’t go very well. Of course, some players performed better than others, such as Zach Frazier, but did they look ready for Week 1?
As teams that struggle now always say, it’s better that the Steelers are seeing these issues now than in September. But Arthur Smith needs to fix them before September in order for that time to be well spent. It starts with the offensive line, but the quarterbacks also need to do a better job.
Having RB Jaylen Warren out until at least the start of the regular season won’t help them evaluate the offensive line, either, though the Steelers may give Najee Harris a good amount of work in the final preseason game. I’m sure Smith wants to end things on a high note, as well, considering the first two games.
The Steelers lost Arthur Smith’s debut in the first preseason game to the Houston Texans, 20-12. It took them over 40 minutes to score, lifted by fourth-string running backs. By then, they were facing future practice squad players, at best.
Last week, the Steelers lost in Russell Wilson’s debut, scoring just three points for Smith. That came near the very end of the first half, the offense stymied for the final 30 minutes. They didn’t even turn the ball over, though they missed a field goal and failed on fourth down.
So how much of what the Steelers looked like is a distortion of the reality, as Arthur Smith says? Do their preseason struggles accurately reflect where they are right now, which is a legitimate cause for concern? Or are we watching a professional golfer working on a new swing and thinking that she needs our advice?
