The Steelers will soon debut OC Arthur Smith’s new all-tight end* offense, and unsurprisingly, Pat Freiermuth is excited about it. Speaking with Mike DeFabo and Jenna Harner on the Yinziders podcast, he talked about the vision behind the tight-end-heavy approach.
“We have four very dynamic tight ends in our room with all different skill sets, so that allows us to dictate what the defense is gonna be in personnel-wise”, Freiermuth said. “If they’re gonna play base against Darnell [Washington], we’re capable of splitting him out, and he’s capable of being a pretty good pass-catching tight end.
“If we’re in 12 personnel with me and Jonnu [Smith] or me and Connor [Heyward] or Connor and Jonnu, if they’re in nickel or base, we have good matchups with tight ends on linebackers at certain points. So I think it’s cool to be able to dictate what they’re gonna be in with the tight ends we have”.
Arthur Smith has always relied heavily on tight ends in his offense, and we saw that with the Steelers last year with Freiermuth, Washington, Heyward, and MyCole Pruitt. Pruitt, a longtime Smith player who followed him to every stop, logged 271 snaps despite missing five games.
But there’s a method to Arthur Smith’s offense, and Freiermuth, the Steelers’ top tight end, explained why. Or rather, he explained that there is an explanation—not available for public consumption. “He does a great job of explaining the reasoning behind each play and what it’s gonna do to attack the defense”, he said. “I can always tell you the reason behind the play we’re trying to do to attack this part of the defense. He does a great job of allowing people to understand that, so you play confident, trying to get that done”.
While the Steelers return their top three tight ends from last season, they also added a different Arthur Smith regular. Jonnu Smith, acquired from the Dolphins, adds yet another dimension to the group. And QB Aaron Rodgers is really high on everyone in the room, although he hasn’t worked much with Smith yet. Smiht missed a lot of time during training camp due to injury.
And Freiermuth didn’t play much during the preseason, either. In fact, we saw a lot of JJ Galbreath and Kevin Foelsch rather than the Steelers’ tight ends who are actually on the roster. They hope to employ their tight ends to stress the defense, and having no idea of what it might look like in advance won’t hurt. Even we don’t know exactly what they will do.
What we do know is that Arthur Smith’s usage of the tight ends throughout his coaching career is well-documented. We know the Steelers aggressively added to the tight end room with Jonnu Smith, and they’ve been using them. During practices, we have seen four-tight-end sets, never mind two, or even three.
Of the Steelers’ tight ends, Darnell Washington is the only plus blocker, but they all can get by. Jonnu Smith and Connor Heyward both function better on the move, capable of playing out of the backfield. Pat Freiermuth is the high-level jack-of-all-trades of the room. And they have two of the 10 highest-paid tight ends in the NFL, so Arthur Smith better figure out how to make use of them all.
*Not actually all tight ends. But close.
