On Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons, the Pittsburgh Steelers forced them to burn a timeout with a surprising personnel grouping on offense.
Pat Freiermuth talked about this during Chalk Talk with Gerry Dulac on 102.5 WDVE Tuesday evening.
“That’s what’s great about Art [Smith]. We have 13 personnel, 12 personnel, 11 personnel, we even have 14 personnel,” Freiermuth said of the many personnel groupings the Steelers use on offense.
The first digit in that number system indicates how many running backs are on the field. The second indicates the number of tight ends.
“The first time we were actually in 14, we ran a play out of 14 and then we spread them out,” Freiermuth said. “That really puts the pressure on the defense to see what they’re gonna do. And Atlanta didn’t like the personnel group they had in ’cause we have such dynamic tight ends. They called a timeout. So, as many times as we can do that and keep the defense on [its] toes, I think we can continue to get this offense rolling.”
Below is the formation they were in for that 3rd-and-3 play that Freiermuth described. You can see the defense scrambling to get organized before a timeout was called on the sideline.
All four rostered tight ends were on the field and RB/WR Cordarrelle Patterson, who is 6-2, 220 pounds, was also out wide with an empty backfield. The Steelers ended up running a QB draw out of that same look later in the game.
Freiermuth told Dulac that the Steelers also have passing plays out of that look. The idea is to get the defense to put a bunch of run stuffers on the field and then exploit mismatches with tight ends that can easily beat those players’ coverage.
“We have the flexibility to then spread them out and get mismatches like me on a linebacker, or [MyCole] Pruitt or Darnell [Washington] on a safety,” Freiermuth said. “I think we feel very comfortable in those matchups.”
When Smith was hired as the Steelers’ offensive coordinator, one thing was very clear. They were going to be utilizing the tight end group a lot. Before he was a head coach or an offensive coordinator, Smith was the tight ends coach for the Tennessee Titans.
During the offseason, TE coach Alfredo Roberts shared a nugget with Steelers.com’s Mike Prisuta, saying Smith had been spending “a lot of time” in the TE room. The Steelers’ offense in Week 1 very clearly showed why he would have been doing that.
The Steelers used two or more tight ends on 59.1 percent of their offensive plays.
This was just Week 1, and QB Justin Fields was a last-minute addition to the starting lineup. They likely didn’t have the full playbook on their call sheet for the day. But as the offense jells and grows together, it is going to be fun to see the curveballs the Steelers can throw at opposing defenses.
