We don’t live in our fears. That is one of head coach Mike Tomlin’s favorite phrases to describe all aspects of football. The only issue is, he had an offensive coordinator and a quarterback last season who seemed to operate exclusively out of fear. Whether you blame Matt Canada, Kenny Pickett, or a combination of both, most of the plays run on offense were overly conservative. They avoided the middle of the field like the plague, and while Pickett only had four interceptions in 12 starts, he also only threw six touchdown passes. Enter new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
“We try to be aggressive in practice and we want to be smart, but not reckless,” Smith said Monday in a clip posted by Yardbarker’s Aaron Becker on X. “We have a lot of team speed, so we’ve tried to push the ball down the field. When we got 50-50 balls, especially with certain guys we have, we want to see them give ’em a chance. There’s risk in every play. When we have the speed we have, and certainly guys like George [Pickens] that can go get the ball.
“There’s definitely times where we certainly want to err on the side of being more aggressive.”
Outside of Pickens, the Steelers probably don’t have a premier receiving threat. But one thing they most certainly have is speed. Calvin Austin III, Scotty Miller, Quez Watkins, and Roman Wilson all ran under 4.40 times in the 40-yard dash coming out of college. George Pickens isn’t too far away from that figure either, and he proved he is a viable deep threat with his league-leading 18.1 yards per reception in 2023.
The Steelers seem to be leaning toward Russell Wilson starting, and both he and Justin Fields are more than capable of pushing the ball down the field. They have both been pretty aggressive in that area over the last two days of practice. Wilson connected on a 70-yard bomb to Calvin Austin III today and Fields had a deep connection of his own.
The identity of the offense is going to be a physical, run-first style of play. That should help set up play-action passing, which opens the door for some of these speedy wide receivers to blow the top off of defenses. If they succeed with a deep shot or two per game and a healthy dose of running the football, opposing defenses will be left in a bind. You can’t stack the box with an extra safety if you are constantly being beat deep.
At its best, that is the conundrum this offense will ideally present to opposing defenses. But that can only be accomplished if the Steelers don’t live in their fears and play aggressively with deep shots down the field. Arthur Smith wants to bring that aggressiveness back to the offense.
