Steelers News: 2 Easy Changes Arthur Smith Can Implement This Week To FIX The Steelers Offense

Steelers News: 2 Easy Changes Arthur Smith Can Implement This Week To FIX The Steelers Offense

[Music] You are watching Steelers Talk by Chat Sports. I’m your host, Jack Sperry. Today we have a lot to talk about here on the program surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers as they continue to prepare for their game in Dublin versus the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. First up, a major change that I think the Pittsburgh Steelers need to make in the run game to fix this group moving forward. Then we’ll talk about how defenses are shutting down the Pittsburgh Steelers passing attack and what the Steelers can do uh to get the passing game going. Then we’ll talk about the latest injury updates surrounding Deshun Elliot and Joey Porter Jr. and then what to expect from Pittsburgh’s defense going up against Kevin O’Connell’s Vikings offense and Carson Wentz on Sunday. So, beat the Vikings for me down there uh by clicking that subscribe button. Uh we’re doing a subscriber battle uh with our Chat Sports Vikings channel called Vikings Now. Uh right now they have 93 new subscribers on their channel this week. We only have 87. If I know Steelers Nation, you guys do not want to lose this sub battle. So, new viewers, we’re counting on you guys to click that subscribe button. Vikings host Patrick Seman. He’s a good friend of mine, but he bet me $50 that he would beat us uh in this sub battle after he saw that he was winning here on a Thursday. So, do me a favor here, guys. Click that subscribe button if you haven’t already so we can beat the Vikings off the field before hopefully the Steelers can beat the Vikings on the field in Dublin on Sunday morning. All right, so now let’s get into our first topic of discussion here, which is a much needed pivot in the run game, at least in my opinion, uh, which is that Arthur Smith should pivot away from his panded zone rushing scheme, and they should, uh, pivot to more of a power run scheme and run more gap scheme concepts. Uh, because plain and simply, guys, this offensive line has not been playing, uh, to a standard that a zone rushing offense needs. Because in a zone rushing system, the thing that you guys need to know is that the offensive line needs to work together and everyone needs to do their job. Everyone uh you can’t have missed assignments, all these different things. And there’s all these rules in terms of who needs to block who and when. You got to climb to the linebackers and there’s all these different things that make it a more complicated run scheme for the offensive line to execute. And as we’ve seen with Pat Meyer as the offensive line coach here in Pittsburgh, he has done a terrible job throughout his tenure here in Pittsburgh at teaching these guys how to do things the right way. And what we’re seeing on the Steelers run game film right now is miss assignments and all these different things. And this offensive line is just not executing the zone rushing schemes that Arthur Smith is dialing up right now. And I think if especially if things continue to really not work out over the next several weeks, you got to make a pivot to a more gap scheme type of run game here. Um, which is a lot simpler for the offensive line because with a zone running scheme, it depends on the front and all these different things and you have to climb and you got to have a high level of chemistry and cohesion and football intelligence. And when you don’t have an offensive line coach that’s coaching guys up in the right way, you’re not really going to have success. But with a gap scheme uh run game, you can have a little bit more of a simplicity. You just have to get in front of your guy and push him backwards or you pull and you take the guy that’s coming through. Like, you know, a gap scheme uh run game is a lot simpler and much more easy to execute and just allows the Steelers offensive lineman to go out and execute assignments. For Brick Jones in particular, you can tell that he’s thinking too much out there in in in run blocking. you know, he’s not, you know, he’s having some really bad mistakes in terms of who he’s blocking. He’s not blocking the right person consistently. I think a lot of that is, you know, he came into the league a bit raw with this stuff. And he hasn’t been coached up in the correct way. Uh, but simplifying things and just saying, “All right, Brick, if they line up this way, you take this guy and you try to absolutely pancake him.” I think that makes it a lot easier for Brick Jones as opposed to all these rules with the zone and the inside zone and outside zone, all these different things uh that just aren’t helping his development at this point. Isaac Seamalo, we know he can run this type of scheme because this is exactly what he ran in Philadelphia. Philadelphia has ran a power run scheme for many, many years at this point. And Seamalo can certainly play that type of system than Zack Frasier is a much better downhill blocker in my opinion. Even going back to college, uh, in my profile of Zack Frasier, I thought that he wasn’t a great fit for a zone rushing scheme. Uh, because he’s not exactly, uh, the best mover in the world. He’s a great athlete and he’s fantastic at winning positioning and all these different things. He’s former wrestler, all that different stuff, but in terms of just moving off the spot, um, you know, he’s that’s not his greatest strength. He’s more of a downhill blocker where you ask him to drive someone backwards. He’s much better at that, uh, than he is with the zone stuff. So, I think that, you know, he would be better suited in a gap scheme as well. Same thing with Mason McCormack, who is a big human being with a lot of functional play strength. He’s another uh another guy here that I think is struggling with some of the assignments that he’s getting in these zone concepts that the Steelers are running right now that I think would benefit from a little bit more simplicity. And then also, Troy Futanu ran a power-based run scheme there at Washington. That’s what Kaylin Dbor runs um and now at Alabama. That’s what he ran at Washington all those years back. and he was phenomenal at it. So, I think that you can really get the most out of this offensive line if you simplify some things here and you go to a gap run scheme. And then also, it also just happens to be the case, guys, that your starting running back Jaylen Warren is awesome running behind gaps gap schemes. You take a look at Warren’s career splits here with the different types of uh run concepts, zone, gap, duo, and pitch plays. Um, the one that has the most uh in terms of yards per carry is the gap stuff that he has ran throughout his career. He’s a super explosive gap runner where you know if you can create some open lanes for him up the middle, he can absolutely use his explosiveness, his jump cutting ability to make guys miss at the second level. Jaylen Warren throughout his career has been uh, you know, better as a gap scheme runner than some of the zone stuff you guys can see here. 4.2 two yards per carry uh compared to 4.9 with the pitch plays and 5.1 with the gap plays. And you know, you would think that Arthur Smith would look at these career numbers and say, “Okay, my top running back is best when running behind a gap run scheme when playing in the National Football League. We should run more of GAP, right?” No. Right now, you’re playing over 60% zone runs. 27 of Jaylen Warren’s carries to this point have been zone carries. there’s only been one gap run this entire season. So, not only are you just not prioritizing it, you’re pretty much not doing it at all. And I think that that is exactly the type of scheme that this offense needs to be running. And I think that Arthur Smith needs to stop making fetch happen here, guys. He needs to stop trying to just do what he does, and he needs to pivot to what this offense and the personnel runs best. And that’s what good coaches do, guys. Good coaches don’t just have quote unquote their system that they run no matter what, no matter what the results are. Good coaches tailor their offensive and defensive schemes to be able to accentuate the strengths of their players. And right now, I think it’s abundantly clear based on the numbers, based on the film evidence that this offensive line and this running back are both better uh in a gap scheme. So, I think you have to make that switch. And, you know, it’s not like, you know, teams can’t be successful gap scheme type of offenses, right? The Los Angeles Rams, Shawn McVey, made the same exact switch a couple years ago where that now they’re majority a powerbased run scheme. Uh the Detroit Lions run a ton of power. You got the Philadelphia Eagles that pretty much only run power in their run game right now. So, you know, this is certainly a system here where the Steelers can have a lot of success if they’re willing to adjust and make some changes. I guess we’ll see if Arthur Smith can wise up in the weeks to come. So, what say you guys? Let me know down there in the comments section. Should the Pittsburgh Steelers switch to a gapbased run scheme? Right now, as you guys can you guys saw just then on the numbers, we’re right now about a 60% zone running scheme and then another 20% is a duo. Uh so that’s a lot of zone right there. Guys, give me a yes or a no whether you think this team should pivot after just three weeks. This will be the pin comment on today’s show. 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A big thank you to Omaha Stakes for sponsoring today’s edition of Steelers Talk. Now, moving on to the passing game for the Pittsburgh Steelers and what’s going wrong uh on that side of the ball. Right now, the Pittsburgh Steelers are seeing a lot of cover five. All right. And if you guys aren’t familiar with cover five, if you play Madden, uh it’s it’s commonly referred to as cover two man, uh where you got the two deep safeties playing uh deep zones and then you’ve got a man coverage, usually press coverage across the board. Um usually played out of nickel, but sometimes uh it’s played out of base as well. Uh but the benefits of a defense playing cover five and why it’s a good coverage when you can play it is because you can keep a lid on deep passing opportunities because you got those two uh deep safeties playing half zones and then also it opens up the quarterbacks to play really aggressive press coverage to jam receivers at the line of scrimmage and try to take them out of the play entirely. All right. So, this is a very aggressive coverage. Uh, usually played uh, you know, in situations where you know the opposing team is going to be passing the football. And there’s certain ways that you can beat cover five because teams are just going to sit in this coverage all day if you can’t beat it. And you can’t do any of these three things. Number one, you can run the football. All right? Because the two high safeties are playing deep, that means there’s one less person in the box, which gives an advantage to the to the run game. so you can run the football more effectively when teams play cover five against you. Also, a second way that you can beat cover five is that your receivers win one-on-one if you’ve got separators at the wide receiver position or at the tight end position um that can separate in man-to-man coverage and against press coverage in particular. And then the third uh thing that you can do to beat cover five is have a quarterback that can run the football because there’s nobody spying the quarterback and there’s only four people rushing uh the passer. So, if you can escape that fourman pressure, everyone’s got eyes uh you know on their receiver because they’re in man coverage and it gives a wide open space to the running to the to the rushing quarterback to be able to pick up big gains. But the thing is, guys, Pittsburgh hasn’t been able to do any of these. All right, you got Aaron Rogers. He’s not running the football right now. You’ve got a bunch of tight ends on the field, so they’re not winning their one-on-one matchups. And DK Metaf’s getting jammed at the line of scrimmage. And then you can’t run the football even with two high safeties because of some of the issues that we’ve been talking about in the zone run game. Not doing your assignments, doing those things, those simple things are costing the Steelers passing game opportunities to throw the ball down the field. And if you’re offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, you have to be able to see that all three of the defenses that you have gone up against have played a ton of man coverage and specifically cover five against your offense because they’re not scared of the run game. They’re not scared of Aaron Rogers taking off and they’re not scared of any of the Steelers wide receiver threats uh getting open versus the press man coverage that this team has been seeing. So, you have to be able to manufacture space because uh right now the these guys and especially DK Metaf is just getting jammed consistently at the line of scrimmage and the Steelers need to find ways to get him ahead of steam. So, the first way you can do that is pre- snap motion. Get him in motion before the snap uh so that the opposing corner can’t jam him at the line of scrimmage. Right now, the Steelers are really staying static, which really uh opens that window up for opposing corners to shut down DK Metaf before he can get going. Another way that you can do it is bunch formations. The Steelers have used bunch formations, but a lot of times teams have bunch checks where they have um you know certain rules for who takes which receiver out of the bunch. So, maybe that’s not the best way, but then stack formations is another way you can do that. Again, teams have stack rules, but at least it would prevent teams from jamming uh DK Metaf at the line of scrimmage. And then the fourth way is to use some rub routes. All right? And use space and use some of these receivers and some of the routes that they’re running to open up creative space uh for for people out in space for the Pittsburgh Steelers offense. That’s the way you beat man coverage and that’s how you manufacture space uh to kind of beat these press looks that the Pittsburgh Steelers have been seeing. And honestly guys, the Minnesota Vikings, who the team who the Steelers play this weekend, don’t really run a lot of true man coverage. They play a lot of quarters, a lot of palms, a lot of cover two. Um, and they play a lot of cover zero, which is probably the most man that they play. Uh, but I I think we see a good dose of cover five versus the Steuers because plain simply like we’ve seen teams go against their own trends. like even Mike McDonald uh played a lot of cover five and he almost never plays ma true man coverage and they did it against the Pittsburgh Steelers quite a bit and they were quite successful at it. So um you know this might be one of the more simplistic Brian Flores game plans that we see from the Vikings defense all season long and unless the Steelers have a plan to attack these cover five man looks um you know they’re going to it’s going to be another long day at the office for the Steelers passing attack. Uh we’re actually going to be going live for that game guys. We’re going to be uh waking up bright and early uh with you guys. 8:30 a.m. Eastern time is when we’re going to be going live for Steelers versus Vikings in Dublin. So, make sure you guys click that subscribe button and join us on Sunday morning uh for our live watch party here in week four. So, now shifting over to the defensive side of the ball and some great news here guys this week is that Deshawn Elliott and Joey Porter Jr. have returned to practice and it certainly seems like uh they are on their way to getting back onto the field. But Pat McAfee show Steelers insider Mark Kaboli certainly seems to have his doubts that these guys will be playing on Sunday. He says I think it’s still up in the air for Joey to play. Probably both Porter and Elliot to be honest with you until after the by-week. Elliott looks fine. There’s no limp, no brace, no crutch. There’s nothing like that. But hamstrings are tricky when it comes to a quarterback like Joey. So, you know, I think that the defensive game plan may change pretty drastically depending on who plays. Uh, if Joey can uh play this weekend, I think that will be big for this defense because they can play more press man looks. They have they’ve been playing a lot of off-man looks uh to start this season because they don’t have anyone that’s particularly good on the outside at playing press coverage outside of Jaylen Ramsay and they want to move him inside and they want to play him at safety and they don’t want to put him outside all the time. So, getting Jaylen or to get Joey Porter Jr. back would be huge and would open up the quote unquote menu of defensive coverages you can run. And then of course we know what Deshawn Elliott brings to this defense as well. Um but I think we’re going to see less cover one than what we’ve been seeing from the Steelers um over the last several weeks. Right now the Steelers are actually second in blitz rate, but it’s mostly because they’re running something like this where you got a five down front and you’re blitzing everybody or you’re sending everyone towards the quarterback. So it’s not really like a true creative blitz or a simulated blitz or anything like that. It’s a pretty simple blitz and you know the Steelers have been spamming this coverage for the past especially two weeks against Seattle and New England who don’t have the best uh wide receiver cores in the league. But now you’re going up against Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison this weekend. If you’re going to be playing a lot of cover one, I think you’re going to get burned against those two superstar two really good wide receivers. Justin Jefferson might be the best receiver in the game today. And I think if you don’t have safety help on him over the top, um it’s going to be a long day at the office for whoever is tasked with uh taking him on in man coverage. So I think we’re going to see a lot more zone uh from the Pittsburgh Steelers. And I think they’re going to play a very similar brand of bend don’t break style of defense like we saw last week where they kind of forced Drake May in that Patriots offense to go on methodical drives, not give up too many explosive plays and keep the defense on the field for as many plays as possible to increase the likelihood of a turnover. All right, and we saw that result in five turnovers for this defense last week. It certainly worked. Um, but you know, how sustainable is that? I guess we’ll have to see. But I actually think that’s a pretty good game plan against a quarterback like Carson Wentz. Somebody that likes to throw the ball down the field. Somebody that is prone to making bad decisions with the football. Somebody that’s prone to making uh inaccurate throws which could turn into turnover opportunities. Somebody with very bad pocket presence. Um you know I think the the strategy for the Steelers is to kind of keep the lid on the defense and then kind of wait for Carson Wentz to make a mistake. And certainly we saw the Patriots do that last week. coughing up the football four times, throwing an interception, and that bend don’t break style approach uh certainly worked for the Steelers versus the Pats. And I think it’s probably the best strategy for the Steelers this week against the Vikings because if you want to man up uh Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and these guys that can create massive amounts of separation, you’re probably going to lose. I’m just going to tell you that right now. But if you can play uh a a style where you keep everything in front of you, you play very solid, you tackle, you know, you you don’t give up too many big gains, and you keep uh that offense on the field for as many plays as possible, that’s going to raise the probability of a turnover on that drive. So hopefully Carson Wentz can make some mistakes. Hopefully the Steelers can uh take advantage of some of those mistakes. And then when Pittsburgh does go to man coverage, you got to have Jaylen Ramsay on on 18. I mean, plain and simply, Darius Slay and Brandon Eckles, I think they’re good players for for who they are, but they’re not going to have a prayer uh to to guard Justin Jefferson one-on-one. Jaylen Ramsey may actually have the best shot there. So, when you do go to man, make sure Jaylen Ramsay is on Jay Jeds. So, predict it for me down there in the comments section. Will the Pittsburgh Steelers hold Minnesota to under 20 points in this game? Let me know down there in the comments. Yes or no? Uh they held the Patriots to under 20 last week. It’s the first time they’ve done that to an opponent in a while. But let me know what you guys think. Yes or no? Will Pittsburgh hold Minnesota to under 20 points. That’ll be it for today’s edition of Steelers News and Rumors. Tomorrow we get the final injury report for Steelers versus Vikings. We get official game designations for both sides. So, we’ll make sure to get you guys an update on that. Uh, make sure you guys click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Until next time, guys. Here we go. Steelers. [Music]

The Pittsburgh Steelers offense has struggled to find consistency in 2025, but we break it down to two simple adjustments that could completely change the trajectory of this team on today’s episode of Steelers Talk. From shifting to a gap-based run scheme that better suits players like Jaylen Warren and Broderick Jones, to solving the Cover 5 defenses that have shut down Kenny Pickett and the passing attack, these fixes could be the key to unlocking Pittsburgh’s potential. Plus, we’ve got the latest Steelers injury updates on Joey Porter Jr. and DeShon Elliott ahead of Sunday’s Week 4 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. If you’re a diehard Steelers fan, subscribe now to Steelers Talk for daily Pittsburgh Steelers news, rumors, and analysis—and help us beat Vikings Now in this week’s sub battle!

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Darrell Warren’s 2025 Splits:
– Zone: 27 Carries (61.3%)
– Gap: 1 Carry (2.2%)
– Duo: 7 Carries (15.9%)
– Pitch: 9 Carries (20.4%)

Mark Kaboly On Steelers Injuries:
“I think it’s still up in the air for (Joey to play). Probably both (Porter & Elliott) to be honest with you until after the bye week…Elliott looks fine. There’s no limp, no brace, no crutch, there’s nothing like that…(but) hamstrings are tricky when it comes to a cornerback like (Joey).”

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How To Manufacture Space vs. press coverage:
1. Pre-Snap Motion
2. Bunch Formations
3. Stack Formations
4. Rub Routes

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– Steelers vs. Vikings Week 4 Preview: Keys To Victory & Score Prediction | Take The Under https://youtu.be/iX4PsqyNkvU
– Steelers News: THIS May Be Omar Khan’s Biggest REGRET From The Offseason + Brian Flores Praises PIT https://youtu.be/5kkSjunpMVQ
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