Though it came with the ugly caveat of a historically poor finish, the Pittsburgh Steelers had their best offensive output in years during Arthur Smith\u2019s first season as offensive coordinator. The team finished 16th in points per game, and for one brief mid-season moment, cracked the top 10. But given the ending and one-and-done playoff outcome, there\u2019s plenty of work left to do. For Smith, the Steelers\u2019 2025 offense will look much closer to the offense he wants to run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard that from multiple people he pretty much had to dial back to what was available to him at the time,\u201d beat writer Mark Kaboly said of Smith\u2019s offense on 93.7 The Fan Friday afternoon.<\/a><\/p>\n Kaboly doesn\u2019t specify who he\u2019s heard the comments from. One man is Arthur Smith himself. As we\u2019ve cited several times, Smith made a reference during the draft to not scheming not as many outside zone runs<\/a>, his bread and butter, as he would\u2019ve liked last season. He didn\u2019t explain the issue but running backs who didn\u2019t quite fit, coupled with an offensive line used to running different schemes, are logical contributing factors.<\/p>\n Pittsburgh spent the offseason making plenty of offensive changes. There\u2019s a brand-new quarterback room, though who will start remains an outstanding question. After letting Najee Harris depart in free agency, the Steelers used a third-round draft pick and the team\u2019s second selection on Iowa RB Kaleb Johnson, a strong fit for an outside zone system.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they are at least more suited right now to let Arthur Smith do what he wants to do all the stuff he wants to do,\u201d Kaboly told Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller. \u201cThe outside zones, some of the across the middle stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s fair to believe any offensive coordinator joining a non-rebuilding team wouldn\u2019t be able to fully implement his offense on the fly. But even giving Smith that pass, it won\u2019t be an excuse for his second season as Steelers\u2019 coordinator. Pittsburgh will need to post better numbers than a season ago. Not just in overall points per game, but the underlying numbers that produce points.<\/a> Better in short-yardage, better in the red zone, and more chunk plays on the ground and through the air to eliminate the need for repeated 10-play drives where one dropped pass or penalty can ruin momentum.<\/p>\n Of course, the new faces added to the Steelers\u2019 lineup must all perform well, especially a young and developing offensive line. As the saying goes, it\u2019s not about the X\u2019s and the O\u2019s but the Jimmy\u2019s and the Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though it came with the ugly caveat of a historically poor finish, the Pittsburgh Steelers had their best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[8740,11566,4829,13635,7,5241,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-92022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-93-7-the-fan","9":"tag-andrew-fillipponi","10":"tag-arthur-smith","11":"tag-chris-mueller","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-mark-kaboly","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-pittsburgh","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","18":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114599807505140312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}