Steelers hire Arthur Smith as OC

Don't really know much about him other than he was the falcons HC. People are saying it's a good hire I guess. Can't get much worse than what we had

He was the OC for Tennessee for 2 years and had Henry rushing for over 2k and was one of the top scoring Offenses in the league with them for 2 years. He didn't have that kind of success while head coach for the Falcons though.
He knows how to put up points and used Henry for all he was worth. He also utilized Tannehill and PA passing really well so that is something that could really help. Steelers hardly used PA the last few years but when they did it was successful.  He knows how to tie in PA with his TEs so we might see some better use of Friermuth.

He has some positives and some negatives. But when he was just the OC with Tennessee he got really good production from his Offense so that's something at least.

There are those who are great coordinators, and those who are great head coaches - and they're not always the same. I wouldn't factor in his time as HC of the Falcons at all, rather, look at his work as an OC.

Ryqan Tannenhill was mostly considered a bust until he went to tennessee. Smith was his OC in 2019 and 2020. Tanny won CPoY award in 2019. Derrick henry had his 2 best seasons under smith.
before he was OC he was a TE coach. maybe he will work washington into the passing game and take full advantage of the 2 TE sets.

it has potential of being a good hire , i'm just a little worried they might fall in to the run,run,pass habit. i mean henry was averaging over 5 yards a carry while he was OC in tennessee, so run,run , often resulted in 1st down or at worst 3rd and short.
as a side note mike sullivan , the QB coach interviewed for the OC job with the saints. would that be a bad thing if he left ? i cant say im too impressed with picketts progress under his tutelage.

Master_Of_Puppets wrote:

Ryqan Tannenhill was mostly considered a bust until he went to tennessee. Smith was his OC in 2019 and 2020. Tanny won CPoY award in 2019. Derrick henry had his 2 best seasons under smith.
before he was OC he was a TE coach. maybe he will work washington into the passing game and take full advantage of the 2 TE sets.

it has potential of being a good hire , i'm just a little worried they might fall in to the run,run,pass habit. i mean henry was averaging over 5 yards a carry while he was OC in tennessee, so run,run , often resulted in 1st down or at worst 3rd and short.
as a side note mike sullivan , the QB coach interviewed for the OC job with the saints. would that be a bad thing if he left ?    i cant say im too impressed with picketts progress under his tutelage.  

Yeah, he can go (Sullivan).

I've liked what I've seen of Arthur's results as an OC. So, I'm feeling good about it - especially if we beef up the line in the draft this year (My hope is 2 in the first two rounds).

Great Randino wrote:

Master_Of_Puppets wrote:

Ryqan Tannenhill was mostly considered a bust until he went to tennessee. Smith was his OC in 2019 and 2020. Tanny won CPoY award in 2019. Derrick henry had his 2 best seasons under smith.
before he was OC he was a TE coach. maybe he will work washington into the passing game and take full advantage of the 2 TE sets.

it has potential of being a good hire , i'm just a little worried they might fall in to the run,run,pass habit. i mean henry was averaging over 5 yards a carry while he was OC in tennessee, so run,run , often resulted in 1st down or at worst 3rd and short.
as a side note mike sullivan , the QB coach interviewed for the OC job with the saints. would that be a bad thing if he left ?    i cant say im too impressed with picketts progress under his tutelage.  

Yeah, he can go (Sullivan).

I've liked what I've seen of Arthur's results as an OC.  So, I'm feeling good about it - especially if we beef up the line in the draft this year (My hope is 2 in the first two rounds).

i would caution against getting too excited. i mean two years isnt a big sample size. he had henry in his prime with a solid OL. having your RB going for 1500-2000 yds certainly would make play calling easier. plus it took the pressure off of Tannenhill to move the ball. i found a vid on youtube of tennesse highlights from 2019 and one for 2020. a common theme of the passing highlights was....you guessed it..play action. those defenses had henry on the brain which sure made it easier for the receivers to get open when all 11 defenders had their eyes in the backfield and were frozen in place.

for now the only thing making me happy is he isnt matt canada. we have already hit rock bottom with canada. there is no where to go but up. how far up remains to be seen.

Tannehill is a FA. I bet they go out and try to pick him up. He is familiar with the OC and his style of play calling and he is comfortable with PA.

Great Randino wrote:

Master_Of_Puppets wrote:

Ryqan Tannenhill was mostly considered a bust until he went to tennessee. Smith was his OC in 2019 and 2020. Tanny won CPoY award in 2019. Derrick henry had his 2 best seasons under smith.
before he was OC he was a TE coach. maybe he will work washington into the passing game and take full advantage of the 2 TE sets.

it has potential of being a good hire , i'm just a little worried they might fall in to the run,run,pass habit. i mean henry was averaging over 5 yards a carry while he was OC in tennessee, so run,run , often resulted in 1st down or at worst 3rd and short.
as a side note mike sullivan , the QB coach interviewed for the OC job with the saints. would that be a bad thing if he left ?    i cant say im too impressed with picketts progress under his tutelage.  

Yeah, he can go (Sullivan).

I've liked what I've seen of Arthur's results as an OC.  So, I'm feeling good about it - especially if we beef up the line in the draft this year (My hope is 2 in the first two rounds).

OT Rd 1
Center Rd 2

I think if they do that they will go a long long way in fixing a lot of the issues. They already have gotten rid of two of their strength and conditioning coaches and are bringing in new people so hopefully we see some payoff from those moves as well.

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I really don't like this hire. Not only doesn't Arthur Smith bring anything innovative, he also doesn't know how to use his best players and he has proven that he can't develop young QB's.

You can't dismiss so easily what he has done with the Falcons just because he was HC and not OC. He never used Pitts who should 've been his number 1 receiver and what makes it even worse is that he was a TE coach for years. So if there's one coach who should 've known it's him. He didn't know how to use Bijan Robinson last year who should've been his number 1 offensive weapon and Desmond Ridder made 0 progression in two years.

There's a reason he didn't get interviews with other teams.

Stella Nation wrote:

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I really don't like this hire. Not only doesn't Arthur Smith bring anything innovative, he also doesn't know how to use his best players and he has proven that he can't develop young QB's.

You can't dismiss so easily what he has done with the Falcons just because he was HC and not OC. He never used Pitts who should 've been his number 1 receiver and what makes it even worse is that he was a TE coach for years. So if there's one coach who should 've known it's him. He didn't know how to use Bijan Robinson last year who should've been his number 1 offensive weapon and Desmond Ridder made 0 progression in two years.

There's a reason he didn't get interviews with other teams.

I know, you have to consider every experience...I do get that. But didn't they use the TE more at Tennessee?

And, we have a back in a similar style as Henry in Najee. He's about 240lbs now, has really bulked up and looked very physical, especially when fully healthy. We have an improving line. More so if we draft OT and then C in the first two rounds. I think he can do similar things with our offense and I believe he will utilise our tight ends.

Am I convinced he's the answer? Not yet. Not until we see the results on the field. At this point, I am cautiously optimistic. We will see. It could be a good hire - but time will tell.

Stella Nation wrote:

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I really don't like this hire. Not only doesn't Arthur Smith bring anything innovative, he also doesn't know how to use his best players and he has proven that he can't develop young QB's.

You can't dismiss so easily what he has done with the Falcons just because he was HC and not OC. He never used Pitts who should 've been his number 1 receiver and what makes it even worse is that he was a TE coach for years. So if there's one coach who should 've known it's him. He didn't know how to use Bijan Robinson last year who should've been his number 1 offensive weapon and Desmond Ridder made 0 progression in two years.

There's a reason he didn't get interviews with other teams.

but , but....did you miss the part where i said he is NOT Matt Canada ?
seriously though , your concerns can not be dismissed. he seems more like an "old school" coach than someone who has embraced the changing game , and players.
looking back at the 2019 and 2020 titans stats tells you much about how he uses his TE's.
in 2019 his TE's combined only accounted for 41 catches and 529 yards . 4 tds.
in 2020 his TE's combined for 46 rec and 497 yds. 10 tds.

to be fair , in 2021 kyle pitts was their most targeted receiver with 110 targets. the next most targeted had 94 targets. pitts was their leading receiver with 68 rec and 1026 yds.
in 2022 Pitts missed 6 games. his numbers dropped to 59 targets , 28 rec ,and 356 yds. the paltry numbers can be explained by shitty QB play. they didnt have a 900 yd receiver on the team.
more of the same in 2023. pitts had 90 targets 53 rec and 667 yds 3 tds.

to sum it up, they tried to get Pitts heavily involved in the offense. he along with the rest of the receivers just suffered from poor QB play. no different than the steelers receivers.

fun fact - falcon TE's , Jonnu Smith and Mycole Pruitt , were also his TE's in tennessee. so he definitely has an infinity for TE's.

Did anyone really expect them picking up someone wildly different then Arthur Smith? He is Matt Canada 2.0 with a wee bit of success with the Titans at the NFL level.

I HOPE He can help us score 10 more points a game. If that is the case we can be a SB contender. If they pick up an OT and Center in the first 2 rounds and they are not complete misfires we can become a dominant running team and give the next QB some time to throw the ball downfield.

Will that happen well we all have to wait and see. The team has holes to fill and the QB question is a big one. I just didn't expect much of a deviation from the standard run the rock philosophy that Art II and Tomlin want on the O side of things.

if you stop and think about it , this hire makes sense. they know they dont have an elite or even above average QB on the roster who can win a shoot out. so what do you do ? you lean on the run game and hope your QB can be a good manager and give you some plays here and there as tannenhill did when the Titans made it to the AFC championship game.

i think its premature to bash the guy based on his falcons stint. he took over and had a washed up vet for a QB. then he was handed marcus mariotta and a 3rd round rookie. to expect a contender from what he was working with is asking alot. the falcons offensive coordinator was named Dave Ragone. who?..... exactly. it was his first crack at being an OC.
as a steeler fan , we should all know by now that team failures are strictly Coordinator failures, not the head coach's.

Maybe I'm indeed too pessimistic. I hope I'm wrong and that he succeeds of course. Art II made it pretty clear a couple of days ago that Tomlin would be the only one who was going to choose the next OC. So if it doesn't work out I hope Art II is finally going to hold Tomlin responsible for his choice.

another thing i noticed looking at old Tennessee stats was they had a FB on the roster. he was fairly active in the passing game catching 39 balls in 2020. perhaps we might see heyward in some I formation.

His resume is short but I won't start off comparing him to Canada.
I'm all for using the run to set up the pass and still believe even in today's pass happy NFL a run first Oline wins games if you have an above average defense. I think we have that. The issue I will have is if we don't take shots down field to mix it up. No more run,run,pass,punt BS. Start using Heyward as a FB and figure out how to get Washington more involved.Pick the middle apart just like EVERYONE ELSE does to us.
We can speculate this hire as good,bad or but we won't really know until next camp.

solardave wrote:

His resume is short but I won't start off comparing him to Canada.
I'm all for using the run to set up the pass and still believe even in today's pass happy NFL a run first Oline wins games if you have an above average defense. I think we have that. The issue I will have is if we don't take shots down field to mix it up. No more run,run,pass,punt BS. Start using Heyward as a FB and figure out how to get Washington more involved.Pick the middle apart just like EVERYONE ELSE does to us.
We can speculate this hire as good,bad or but we won't really know until next camp.

I LOVE when a team uses a fullback. The NFL as a whole has drifted away from that, but I still like it, especially when you want to run the ball. Hayward is the perfect hybrid for that role. Can lead block for the backs, can catch out of the backfield, or shift to TE. I think the NFL is shifting back toward the running game. Teams that can block and run, can usually throw the ball too. It forces the opponents into single coverage looks and then you pop them. It's what's helped Brock Purdy in SF (plus he's a really smart and mobile QB, feels pressure well and knows when to scramble for yards).

I do hope that Arthur Smith is close to as smart as Romo (not I'm not knocking Romo here, I seem to be one of the few left that actually likes his broadcasting). What I mean is, Romo said, "If you want to get your QB in a rhythm early in the game - throw the ball on first down. That's the down the opponent is most likely to be in vanilla coverage, meaning it's the easiest down to throw on." Even a play-action check-down to a TE on first down can mean easy throw and positive first down yardage.

Check out this video, there are some impressive stats in there. Feeling much better about this hire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORZz_u3QHlI

Great Randino wrote:

 I think the NFL is shifting back toward the running game. .

just for context. the ratbirds led the NFL in rushing attempts with 541 , but that is skewed given the amount of times jackson runs with it (148 times), so the next most were the bears with 534 attempts. but fields also ran it 124 times. so next would be the 9ers with 499 attempts.
in 2004 the steelers had 618 attempts in 16 games. far more than the second most which was the same as the bears with 534 attempts. again it was 16 games which comes out to 33.4 attempts per game compared to the 2023 bears 31.4 per game, or the 9ers 29.4 attempts per game.
also in 2004 there were 5 teams that averaged under 100 yds a game rushing compared to 11 in 2023.

in 2023 16 QBS had 490 or more passing attempts. in 2004 8 QBS had 490 or more passing attempts. again thats 17 games vs 16.

so what does all this mean ? 5? ,6? more rushes a game 20 yrs ago ?

given the lack of QB talent in the league you would think leaning on the run game and defense would be an obvious option. i think thats why they went with art smith. the current steelers some what resembles his old titans team. promising rushing game and a less than stellar QB on the roster. he isnt here to develop a QB. he is here to try to work around the QB deficiencies. if pickett showed to be a promising but raw future QB star then they probably would have went with an OC with a system designed around the QB.

Well, after the Matt Canada catastrophe, the Steelers were determined to hire someone 1. from the outside. 2. with NFL Experience. 3. success running an offense.

Arthur Smith, with 17 years in the NFL, certainly meets the first two criteria. Seeing what he's done with Tennessee especially, he meets criteria #3.

You either go "young" - take a chance on a young QB coach or something, someone who has never been a coordinator (Steelers weren't going to do that after getting burned), or you get someone on a "bounce-back". Good OC track record but not successful as head coach.

There can't be a lot of people out there that meet that criteria. I think they saw an opportunity to get someone like Arthur Smith and they jumped at it.

His work with Tannehill was impressive. Ryan was a middling QB having a disappointing career. Smith turned him around on a dime. So, probably as ideal of a hire as you can get. That is, at least until we see the Steelers O next season and we will either be singing his praises or cursing his name!

again i would caution not to set expectations to high. don't expect the offense he had in tennessee. he wont have derrick henry in his prime. he wont have pro bowlers taylor lewan and roger salfold on his Oline. hell he wont even have a QB thats proven they are better than tannenhill was. he also wont have 3x
in 5 seasons pro bowler AJ brown running routes.
the success he will or wont have hinges on what they do between march and august. if they dont get serious upgrades at LT and center it will be another long season. he also needs more consistency from broderick jones. dude must have hit the rookie wall because his pass protection was sketchy the last few weeks.

Master_Of_Puppets wrote:

again i would caution not to set  expectations to high. don't expect the offense he had in tennessee. he wont have derrick henry in his prime. he wont have pro bowlers  taylor lewan and roger salfold on his Oline. hell he wont even have a QB thats proven they are better than tannenhill was. he also wont have 3x            
in 5 seasons pro bowler AJ brown running routes.
the success he will or wont have hinges on what they do between march and august. if they dont get serious upgrades at LT and center it will be another long season. he also needs more consistency from broderick jones. dude must have hit the rookie wall because his pass protection was sketchy the last few weeks.

Agree 100%. Time will tell how it turns out. But there is at least hope.

And yes to OT and C. Should be our first two picks.

Great Randino wrote:

Master_Of_Puppets wrote:

again i would caution not to set  expectations to high. don't expect the offense he had in tennessee. he wont have derrick henry in his prime. he wont have pro bowlers  taylor lewan and roger salfold on his Oline. hell he wont even have a QB thats proven they are better than tannenhill was. he also wont have 3x            
in 5 seasons pro bowler AJ brown running routes.
the success he will or wont have hinges on what they do between march and august. if they dont get serious upgrades at LT and center it will be another long season. he also needs more consistency from broderick jones. dude must have hit the rookie wall because his pass protection was sketchy the last few weeks.

Agree 100%.  Time will tell how it turns out.  But there is at least hope.

And yes to OT and C.  Should be our first two picks.

i have been watching the senior bowl news this past week. tomlin was there coaching one side.  the pundits leading up to the draft had oregons,  Jackson Powers-Johnson, as their top center. he apparently was the most dominate offensive linemen during practice. before he was universally listed as a 2nd round pick. now he is being called a 1st round consideration.
the dolphins lost their center , connor williams, he went down in Dec with a torn ACL. he wont be ready for the beginning of the season , plus he is a free agent and has played himself in to a considerably bigger contract demand. given the circumstances and the phins late pick i cant help but think there would be 1 less center to choose from come pick 50. one reporter did note that Tomlin took an interest in WVU's center Zach Frazier.
another option could be bidding for Connor williams. i wanted him 2 years for Guard. yep he was guard for the cowboys, and the phins moved him to center and he excelled there. spotrac projects he could get 13.5 million a year. they could have Daniels at center and herbig at LG until williams is ready to go.

i'm pretty convinced it will be a tackle taken at pick 20. i saw one pundit suggest there could be as many as 8 tackles taken in the 1st round. they better strike while the irons hot.

https://www.steelers.com/video/watch-1-on-1-with-smith

solardave wrote:

https://www.steelers.com/video/watch-1-on-1-with-smith

Really good interview.