Smith Offense/Russell Wilson/WR’s and TE's

When you look at Arthur Smiths offense it supposedly thrives on the following:

1. Wide Zone Blocking - Run Game
2. 12 personnel as base offense - Offers diversity to run or pass without telegraphing the play.
3. Heavy blocking from Wide Receivers and Tight Ends.
4. Big Bodied WR’s who can stretch the field vertically and be physical.
5. Heavy Play action
6. Speed on the perimeter to stretch the field to open up the underneath routes and run game.
7. Alot of check downs to RB’s in passing game.
8. Heavy usage of TE’s in passing game out of 12 personnel set.

How do the Steelers fit this?
1. I believe we now have the makings of an offensive line grouping that is athletic and versatile enough to block Wide Zone, Gap, Pull or Power.
2. This is a question mark - Do we have the personnel yet for this setup? I believe we have the RB’s and we have the TE’s but there are some questions on the TE’s. Can Muth become the blocker we need him to be or do we only play him in the slot or out wide and not ask him to block much? I don’t believe Pitts was asked to block much, but Pitts ran a 4.46 and was more of a big bodied WR than Muth would or could be.
3. Do we have the right grouping of WR’s for this? Is GP willing to do this consistently and are the other WR’s big enough to be effective at this?
4. I believe we definitely have the vertical speed. But we only have one proven WR who is big and physical and matches what Smith desires. Can the other WR’s be effective at getting off the line on the perimeter and get open?
5. I believe Wilson and Fields will thrive in this area.
6. We have this in spades.
7. Warren and Wilson thrive in this area.
8. Muth should thrive in this area but how will Wilson operate in the system relative to this? He isn’t known to pass to the TE alot.

When you look at Arthur Smiths Offense last year there are some interesting stats:

Falcons Offense 2023
RB Targets 124 (24%) RB Receptions 88 (27%) Yards 745 (20%) TD 6 (35%)

WR Targets 209 (41%) WR Receptions 124 (38%) Yards 1,650 (44%) TD 4 (24%)

TE Targets 174 (33%) TE Receptions 114 (35%) Yards 1,380 (36%) TD 7 (41%)

Bijan Robinson 65% of Production in yds 90% in TD’s at RB position.
Kyle Pitts 48% of Production in yds and 45% in TD’s at TE position.
Drake London 55% of Production in yds and 50% in TD’s at WR position.

I believe the Steelers can compete with ATL in the RB position. We may not have the talent of a Bijan but Najee/Warren together are more than capable producing as well if not better than Bijan in this system.

I believe Pickens is a better talent than Drake London. London is a big bodied WR with average speed a 4.5 40. The rest of the receiving group in All was average and from a target and production standpoint well below Bijan and Pitts and the second TE who produced 582 yards and 3 TD’s. The second highest producing WR was Hollins with 30 targets, 18 receptions, 251 yards and 0 TDs. This doesn’t paint the whole picture though. As Pitts really was/is a hybrid WR who runs a 4.46 40 at 6’6”.

With Pitts really being a hybrid WR they essentially had tow big bodied WR’s and the inline TE was Jonnu Smith with 70 targets and 50 receptions.

So the real question here is will Friermuth be able to produce in the same role that Kyle Pitts produced in? Who will the second receiving Te be that is similar to Jonnu Smith? The second question is how will this offense produce without that second big bodied perimeter WR? Will we be able to block up on the permitter on the outside with the smaller WR’s to enable the wide zone run game to be effective? Will the smaller WR’s be able to get off press man to stretch the field and draw double coverage away from Pickens? Will Pickens be able to beat double coverage? Will Russ utilize the TE’s in the passing game?

One thing I am sure of is our offense has more speed than Atlantas. Will that be enough to enable his system to thrive? In this offense the players I am most interested in seeing how they will fit and produce is Russel Wilson, Roman Wilson and Pat Frieirmuth and Najee of course.

If they some how could pull off trading for DK Metcalf he would be the perfect fit to complete this offense.Hopefully Khan can make it happen.

 

What were the similarities and differences in his system between his offense in Atlanta and his offense with the Titans in 2019 and 2020 when he was their OC?

 

this video does offer some good details of this offense. my worries are as i have said in the past, do we have the smarts of individual players to run this offense to it's fullest? there are many reads by the linemen that have to be read the same by all of them for success. then the backs have to read the same things as all 5 of those guys. it may change with just a d-lineman moving or shifting at the last second. the way the receivers have to read coverages and depths they run to get another receiver open on each given play. will ours do that especially if they are not the main read on any given play. (pickens comes to mind).

then the qb's have to be reading the same things at every level compared to what the defense is showing or trying to fool them with. (fields comes to mind). are our players smart enough to run these concepts?

some of these coordinators are far smarter than what these players can process. shannahan comes to mind. i have talked about gruden and the way his mind worked over his players. does smiths concepts raise expectations too high for the intelligence of our players?

people talk about pat meyers coaching but he and smith are well versed in the same blocking schemes that they like to run and coach. so much is put on the players to be detailed oriented for each and every thing a defender does on any given play. part of the reason it takes half a season for the line to get on the same page. now we are adding new players that have to get to that level of comfort just reading what to do let alone doing it in unison.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nf...mith-s-scheme/ar-BB1nKtGo?ocid=BingNewsSearch

i guess we shall see how this comes out of the gate. what does it do long term? many one year contract players are running it right now. will this determine who gets extensions? will it be the ones that can handle it the best? how well are these new assistants teaching it? so many questions.

 

a mid-tier offense and a TOP 5 defense. We will compete

AFCN is brutal - NOTHING Khan or Tomlin or Smith can do about that........just the era of that right now.....

 

I saw Ben yesterday at the Man Up event in Cranberry and he said the same thing. The Steelers have a good running game and a good defense, the team's big question mark is at the WR position. It was a really good event with Alex Highsmith, Ben, Tomlin and Cam Heyward all speaking there.

 

i'd rather have a good passing game, myself.

 

But for now, until we get a franchise QB, we'll just have to cycle thru QBs till we find one. Might be a long wait.

 

Well, given the fact that it appears that Arthur Smith will be with the team for at least three seasons, it is going to take at least two of them to fully implement the offense as a whole; this current one being one of three. That said however, the pieces on the Offense are nearly completed on being filled for running the system; sans the big bodied Outside Z the OP mentioned. Beyond that though, everything else is where it needs to be; doubly so with the Tight Ends.


My biggest question stems from not how long will it take for the Offense itself to find its footing but how short is Russell Wilson's leash in the Offense as a whole?! Mind you all that Wilson's best games historically come out of structure of the Offense and very seldom from inside of it. Yes, Smith's usage of Play Action and having his QBs work outside the numbers do help but that isn't going to be the case 100% of the time.

 

o-line loving this O.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nf...&cvid=cecb7a8e49594c84986ce307928fc807&ei=116

 

People forget that Najee is an underrated receiver

I think RB and TE are going to get a decent amount throws their way and will take some of the pressure off the receivers so that trading for a "name" player is not needed, I think, like I've said before, bringing in a new WR wld be disruptive financially and w team chemistry, it's not needed. The group as a whole WR,TE, RB can be adequate in passing offense

 

It will be the biggest change in this offense

 

IMO, this season could be our best shot at a SB for awhile. Wilson is not our future. He just needs to have one more decent season. Fields does not come into the equation for me.

No idea what is in the 2025 draft as far as the QB position. I know the AFC is a bear but minus major injuries I think the Steelers could see 11 wins. As usual we won't have a high draft pick but I sure hope we get lucky with a QB.

 

i agree. we are due an injury limited season. we have had our fair share of stars taken out. somebody else's turn.

 

This is true that it was bad for the steelers on defense,but this is hard to have a injury limited season.The offense was for the most part heathly last year outside of the injury of Johnson for 4 of the first 5 games and Kenny after that.The o-line was very healthy in the last 2 years,I hope it continue....

The steelers still need to be much better if Watt is out for like 2-3 games...can't continue to be a 1-11 type team without him

 

The defense also had the ILB room decimated along with Watt being out last season. MF dealt with some nagging thing and was in and out all season. You can definitely say the defense was on injury alert for most of last season.

I like our LB corps right now. The secondary looks like it can be special too. It's the DL that could be the weakness with injuries this season. Depth is suspect.

 

yeah - it's not that complicated, if Ben and I both said it, then it DEFINITELY is not complicated!!!

LOL!!!!

sounds like a great event!!

 

It was, Cam had a funny story about his rookie training camp. He said because he was the first round pick that the offensive line went out of their way to make him look bad in camp, especially Willie Colon. He said that after Colon had given him a cheap shot after the whistle that he came over to sideline and coach John Mitchell told him he better start fighting back or things will get worse. Cam said "You mean I'm allowed to fight back?" and Mitchell said "Yes that's what we've been waiting for!" When Cam went back in Willie Colon threw a punch after the play and Heyward unloaded on him and both benches emptied. Cam said that when Casey Hampton had his back and started throwing punches, everyone backed away because nobody wanted to get hit by a stray haymaker from Hampton.

 

I would too, but with today's NFL forcing the LB and DL positions to get smaller and quicker, sometimes some old-school bully ball can be highly effective. We had great passing attacks in the past but didn't have the defense to pull it off either. Until we get another Ben, it is going to be hard to have that top-flight passing game. We are probably right to focus our efforts on the running game and possessing the ball. Around 22-24 ppg is probably good enough to make us legitimate threats to come out of the AFC if our defense stays healthy. IDC how we do it.

 

22-24 ppg + a top 5 D will make some waves.

and Boz back to All Pro form.

 

Our offense just has to avoid being a liability. Sure, we will still have stagnant games and times where we put up 16 points like in the Kenny days... but our defense has proven that they can still win these games when healthy. Imagine how much easier we can breathe on Sundays if our offense could score some points. We wouldn't have to be "perfect" like we had to the last few years. We couldn't turn it over, give up any big plays, make big mistakes. When we did, we just lost that game. We also wouldn't have to come away with a huge momentum swinging play defensively in every game to have a shot to win. With an offense that can move the ball and score, we have a bit of a margin for error.

 

Yeah,the steelers had zero margin of error in the last several years...This is a miracle the steelers had a winning record in each of the last 3 years since the offense were a joke for most of the time...I hope it will change

I still not sold for our defense against elite offense...I don't know if they can hold them below 30 points but if the offense is better it will help