A good offensive coordinator doesn’t try to bend the personnel to his scheme but rather designs it with the available personnel in mind. The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense has a chance to be better in just about every area, but there is no doubt that passing the football is a big part of the plan with Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf added to the team.
“We’d love to be more balanced,” Smith said of the Steelers’ run-heavy approach last year in audio provided by the team. “Obviously as your roster evolves, you don’t bring Aaron in here and sign DK for all that money to go run the wishbone. So you try to play to the strength of your team.”
The wishbone offense is 31 or 32 personnel with two running backs, a fullback and one or two tight ends on the field. It’s an old-school approach that doesn’t see the light of day much anymore in modern football. Obviously that was never on the table, but Smith is exaggerating to make the point that the Steelers are obviously going to be utilizing the talents of Rodgers and Metcalf in the passing game.
The Steelers have been accused of having an archaic offense at times in recent years. Some of that had to do with the personnel available to them. Things might be different this time around.
Rodgers has one of the best arms in NFL history. Even at 41 years old, he can still put zip on the ball with great accuracy. Metcalf is a physical freak at 6-4, 229 pounds with a 4.33-second 40-yard dash. They didn’t pay him top-five WR money to run the entire offense through the ground game.
Only Joe Burrow threw the ball more than Rodgers last year. Rodgers had a whopping 584 pass attempts compared to 497 by Russell Wilson and Justin Fields combined. The Steelers ran the ball 49.3 percent of the time compared to the Jets running the ball just 35.9 percent of the time. I don’t expect the Steelers to get quite to the level of the Jets with their run-pass splits, but they shouldn’t use the same mix of plays they did last year either.
Finding the correct balance will be one of the Steelers’ most important orders of business until the start of the season. To credit Arthur Smith, Albert Breer reported that he’s been building an offense with Rodgers in mind for months.
The Steelers will want to protect Rodgers from that many drop backs and the potential punishment on his body as a result, and they will want to make use of their improved offensive line and the two-headed monster of Jaylen Warren and Kaleb Johnson. But they absolutely must get more creative in the passing game with Rodgers.
