Before he was an offensive coordinator or a head coach, Arthur Smith was a tight ends coach for three seasons with the Tennessee Titans. His experience in that role shows in the way he builds his offensive game plan, featuring two or three tight ends on the field at a time.
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ tight ends are enjoying that change.
“Love it,” Pat Freiermuth said via Cameron Heywards’ Not Just Football podcast posted this morning. “It’s great for the tight end room. It gets a lot of us on the field. Lot of 12 [and] 13 personnel. I think he does a really good job utilizing our skill set to advantage us over the defense. And so I think it’s been awesome so far.”
Dating back to when Smith was first hired, his coaching history suggested there would be a lot of tight end usage, and it sounds like that will be the case in the 2024 season.
The Steelers kept four tight ends on their initial 53-man roster, which is evidence of the influence Smith’s system has on the roster construction. Freiermuth will be the featured target of the group in the passing game, but they have a variety of skill sets that Smith can put to use.
Darnell Washington is a bigger body who can block and hopefully get more involved in the passing game, especially near the goal line. MyCole Pruitt is a little more compact at 6-2, 258 pounds and can also help out in the passing game. He has eight touchdowns in the four years he worked under Arthur Smith. And Connor Heyward can do a little bit of everything, including serving as a fullback in the backfield.
“Like Pat said, just lining us up in a variety of different formations and just letting us showcase what we’re able to do,” said Connor Heyward. “Like today, he lined me up all over, but he’s lined us up all over throughout camp just to see what we’re comfortable with and see what we’re able to do. So when game time comes, we’re able to do those things.”
The 12- and 13-personnel packages work best when all of the tight ends are able to get involved in a variety of ways. Freiermuth acknowledged he is more of a pass catcher, but thinks the new offense puts him in positions where he can win as a blocker, too.
“I think in this offense it puts me up in certain situations where I can thrive in the blocking game as well,” Freiermuth said.
Tight end usage was way down in 2023 under Matt Canada. By the end of October, while Freiermuth was out with an injury, they had just 21 receptions for 152 yards and two touchdowns as a group. That improved a little down the stretch, but the group still only accounted for 62 receptions, 536 yards, and two touchdowns in total. That number is set to go way up in the 2024 season.
As it stands right now, Freiermuth is effectively the team’s No. 2 WR, so his numbers should pretty easily eclipse the entire unit’s numbers from a season ago.
It wouldn’t be surprising for the tight ends double their collective receiving yards as last year, and hopefully several more touchdowns, too.
This obviously also allows the team to have some bigger bodies on the field to block for the run game as well. The offense will likely be a run-first group but being able to work passing concepts out of 12 and 13 personnel gives defenses a lot to think about. Not every defense has the personnel to combat the potential mismatches there as the league trends smaller and more athletic on defense to combat 11 personnel and West Coast offenses.
For some teams, speed kills. For the 2024 Steelers offense, size kills.
