Is Arthur Smith the cure to the Steelers woes?

The Super Bowl has yet to take place and I am already thinking about what the Steelers are going to do next year. It is going to be a long offseason again with even more questions and speculation than last year, so let's get started, shall we?

If you listen to local radio or read local papers, I'm sure you have heard how Smith will be great for some players and awful for others. I want to take a deep dive into how they are coming to this conclusion and what we should expect with the offense he is about to inherit.

First, let's look at his offensive coordinator days with the Tennessee Titans. For two years, in 2019 and 2020, Smith was the OC for the Titans and worked with a sort of lackluster offense. I mean, he did have Derrick Henry in his prime, in both seasons Smith was with Tennessee, King Henry carried the ball over 300 times each season, and for over a thousand yards. Hell in 2020 Henry rushed for his career-high 2,027 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns. In 2019 the Titans were ranked third in rushing and in 2020 they moved up to second, not too shabby considering they were ranked 6th in 2018.

Here is the not-so-great look though, the passing aspect of the offense was ranked 21st in 2019 and 23rd in 2020. This is slightly better though considering they were 29th in 2018, however, 2019 was A.J. Brown's rookie season, and he contributed 1,000 of their combined 3,582 yards. He also hauled in 8 of the 29 passing TDs the Titans had that year. Aside from Brown, Ryan Tannehill didn't have an impressive receiving corps. Corey Davis was able to improve under Smith, in '19 he had a little over 600 yards with 2 TD's and in '20 he accumulated just under a thousand yards and 5 TD's. In 2020 Brown was able to improve on his TD's and around the same yards, but aside from those two, there weren't any receivers worth noting. Tajae Sharpe never panned out along with Jonnu Smith, leaving this offense wanting.

The good news was that in the two years Arthur Smith was in Tennessee he improved the offense all around. It's just hard to tell how much was Smith and how much was Mike Vrabel and the offense that was already in play. It does seem that Smith was able to lift them from the 9-7 rut they were in for 4 years before Smith joined the roster. Smith also seemed to be the catalyst to get them to the conference championship game in 2019, they lost, but it was the furthest they had been since 2002.

For the past three years, Smith has been the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, and it's hard to judge his performance in my opinion, simply because of the state of the Falcons since Matt Ryan left, well, more like Matt Ryan kind of fading away. The Falcons have been a threat up to about 2017 and have been slowly drifting into obscurity since then. Since Smith took the head coaching position Atlanta has had 3 years straight of a 7-10 record. The Falcons look very similar to the Steelers in that they have a quarterback in Desmond Ridder that the fanbase is less than convinced is the future. They also have a pair of running backs capable of a heavy one-two punch. The fact that Smith was able to jump into that rebuild and stay relevant should be noteworthy of something. On the other hand, there wasn't much improvement in the three years he was heading that franchise, if anything it was stagnant.

Given that Drake London was the only real threat at receiver that Smith was working with, and the inexperience Bijan Robinson had, I think Smith is coming into a much more lucrative situation with the Steelers offense. Sure, there still is and will be the QB question/situation that will not be answered until the first kickoff of the '24 season, but I think it's a better situation than having Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke to choose from.

So who will benefit and who will hurt? I keep hearing that George Pickens and Diontae Johnson will be very upset in this offense, but I think Smith will be happy he has more than one receiver to play with. A.J. Brown's best years were in Philadelphia but that's not to say he didn't flourish to start his career under Smith. Drake London isn't putting up ridiculous stats but considering Ridder's stat line it's not exactly a surprise. I think the running game is where the most improvement comes and if Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren can keep up how they looked towards the end of the year I think this could be the best year for both of them stats-wise. I think the biggest hit comes in the tight-end department, I never liked how Smith underutilized Kyle Pitts. I can see Smith trying to throw Darnell Washington in more to block or have a larger presence at TE and Pat Freiermuth hurting the most in this new offense. I am interested in how he handles the QB situation though. Between having Ryan Tannehill and Desmond Ridder, I don't think Smith has ever really had a great experience with a QB. He's not exactly inheriting Aaron Rodgers or Patrick Mahomes, but again, is our QB situation that much worse than what he was dealing with in Atlanta?

As usual, it's way too early to tell, the only thing I hope for is that we are not calling for his head like we were Canada's midway through the season.