In early July, we wrote about offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s tendency to spread the love. This means his offenses weren’t concentrated around one guy dominating the stats. Certainly not when it came to touchdowns.
As we noted, since becoming a play caller in 2019, his Tennessee Titans and Atlanta Falcons’ offenses combined tied for the seventh-highest “touchdown spread,” the number of players who caught at least one touchdown pass in a given year. On average, it was 7.2 players. Compare that to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who had the tightest spread in the NFL over that same timeframe, with just 5.4 players.
Some of that was because Pittsburgh simply didn’t throw many touchdown passes. But even though the Steelers still rank in the bottom half of passing touchdowns this season with only 11, more players have found the end zone than they have in years.
Using the same chart we made in July with 2024 included, here are the number of Steelers to score receiving touchdowns from 2019 through 2024.
| Year | Steelers TD Receivers |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 7 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2022 | 6 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2020 | 5 |
| 2019 | 6 |
Pittsburgh has already surpassed every other year. With his 32-yard game-winner, WR Mike Williams became the seventh Steeler to catch a touchdown this year. The others are: WR George Pickens, WR Van Jefferson, WR Calvin Austin III, TE Pat Freiermuth, TE Darnell Washington, and TE Connor Heyward.
You’d have to go back to 2018 to find the last time so many Steelers caught a touchdown. Nine of them did that season, though it helped that Pittsburgh threw 35 of them on the season, including one from kicker Chris Boswell to OT Alejandro Villanueva. Pittsburgh doesn’t even have one-third of that total to date.
Five different Steelers have caught Russell Wilson’s six touchdown passes this season, but only Pickens has caught multiple. He continues to show the ability to spread the love.
Much of this is rooted in Arthur Smith’s philosophy. As noted in that July article, Smith believes in rewarding players with touchdowns. Not that it’s forced but there’s a belief in keeping players engaged and believing anybody could score at any moment. His varied personnel groupings aid in that.
In the summer, we offered these projections for how the season might play out.
“Five [touchdowns] is a realistic number for someone like Pickens. Expect the tight ends to all find the end zone. Pat Freiermuth 3-4 times, Darnell Washington 2-3 times, Connor Heyward 2-3 times. And the running backs will probably also score through the air. Last season, Falcons backs had six total receiving touchdowns.”
So far, that’s tracking. The running backs haven’t scored yet, but their time could be coming, especially now that the group is healthy. Najee Harris, Jaylen Warren, and Cordarrelle Patterson are all capable pass-catchers.
Under Arthur Smith, the offense’s improvement has been a full-team effort, big and small. Wilson’s impact is obvious. But the running game has improved with better technique and more effort from downfield players like receivers throwing that final key block to spring the runner. Everyone’s touching the ball; everyone is getting their chance. Darnell Washington is a bigger piece of the passing game than he was as a rookie. Calvin Austin is being used in smarter and more impactful ways.
Even players like WR Ben Skowronek have their role. Given his size, he was used in 13 personnel groupings against Washington as a blocker. One day, they’ll throw deep to him off play-action, hoping to catch the defense asleep. Maybe he’ll become the eighth Steeler to catch a touchdown. It sure feels like new faces will find the end zone before the season’s through.
