The Pittsburgh Steelers have seen the hiring of Arthur Smith as their offensive coordinator pay off in a big way, especially in the last two weeks, with back-to-back 30-plus point games and the run game taking off. Behind the scenes, Smith is making life easier on his players by being “one of the guys” in Pittsburgh’s locker room, Darnell Washington said.
“Art Smith, he for sure one of the guys in the locker room. He’s a coach, but not only that, he’s a player’s coach. He joke around with us, have fun with us, like he understand, in our position, so he kind of just takes the ease off of just work. So he tries to just joke around with us and just make us play our game,” Washington said via Steelers.com.
He added that it’s helped the locker room relax.
“When our coach does that, it just takes less pressure off ourselves and let ourselves relax.”
Anything a coach can do to help lighten the load from his players during a grueling season is positive, and Arthur Smith is helping guys relax by just joking around and not making everything so serious. There’s a lot of work involved each week with game planning, practice, and getting physically and mentally ready, and it can certainly be a grind. As someone who’s been a coach in the NFL since 2011 and served as a head coach for three seasons, Smith understands that and is helping lighten the load.
On the field, someone who’s playing tense is going to play worse. Being loose and relaxed on the field will lead to better performances, and as Washington said, it just lets the offense relax and play their game. That’s been the case the last two weeks, as the offense looks like it’s having fun out there, and the results have shown themselves in the form of two blowout wins.
Arthur Smith’s been a major asset to Pittsburgh’s coaching staff, and it’s nice to have an offensive coordinator who knows what he’s doing again after the Matt Canada experience. The way the Steelers controlled the ball and won games earlier this season was impressive, and now they’re opening up the offense a little bit more, and Najee Harris is starting to take off. They’ve also been dominant in the second half this season. If the Steelers can keep things rolling through the second half of the season, they’ll be in a good spot to potentially make some noise in the playoffs.
