The Pittsburgh Steelers rolled out their new offense under first-year coordinator Arthur Smith on Friday night in their pre-season opener against the Houston Texans, and the results were, well, less than stellar. Three drives, 17 plays, 74 yards, no points, two sacks and two fumbled snaps. I’m sure it wasn’t the debut he desired.

Steelers fans should know better than to put much stock into pre-season performance, however. Last year, then-quarterback Kenny Pickett looked like the second coming of Joe Montana in the pre-season before faltering when the real action began. Pickett is now in Philadelphia as a result. So, while it’s easy to scoff at the product the offense produced on Friday, examining Smith’s methodology is far more constructive. Here, then, are three takeaways from what we learned about Smith’s approach with the first-team offense.

BIGGER GROUPINGS

Smith’s use of personnel looks as though it will be considerably heavier than what we’ve seen the past few seasons. In 2022 and 2023, Matt Canada operated out of 11 personnel (one back, one tight end, three wide receivers) on over 70% of his snaps . Friday night against the Texans, Smith’s starting offense ran nine plays out of 11 personnel and eight out of 12, 13 and 21 groupings that utilize two or fewer receivers.  The sample size was small, but it appears we will see plenty of big bodies on offense this season.

While it came as no shock that Smith used bigger groupings — this is precisely what he did in previous stops as a play-caller in Tennessee and Atlanta — the manner in which he employed his personnel was interesting. For example, on Pittsburgh’s opening possession they faced a 2nd and 11 at their own 38-yard line. Smith brought in three tight ends, which prompted the Texans to leave their bigger personnel on the field. The Steelers then aligned in an empty set, which got them one-on-one coverage on George Pickens to the outside. With the corner over Pickens playing soft, Justin Fields hit Pickens on a hitch that the receiver turned into a 15-yard gain. That kind of creative scheming — using personnel and formations to dictate to the defense and find the advantage you want — is not something we’ve seen from this offense in a while.

Smith will only be able to scheme up these types of advantages a couple of time a game, however. If Pittsburgh wants to go big, their tight ends are going to have to play well within the core of the offense. Are they good enough to do so? That remains to be seen. Pat Freiermuth is a budding star who, between injuries and being under-utilized, hasn’t tapped his full potential yet. Darnell Washington is a plus blocker who is yet to find a role in the passing game. Connor Heyward is a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. MyCole Pruitt is a smaller, older version of Washington. Individually, their resumes are mediocre. Collectively, the Steelers hope the sum of their parts will justify the increase in playing time.

In that sense, Friday night represented an encouraging start. As a group, the tight ends had three receptions on three targets, including a touchdown to Heyward, and blocked well. Everyone on offense is experiencing growing pains, so it may take the group some time to round into form. Smith is putting a lot of faith in the belief they will.

EMPHASIS ON THE RUN

Under Canada, the Steelers threw the football nearly 60% of the time. Canada’s predecessor, Randy Fichtner, threw it 68% of the time in Ben Roethlisberger’s final season. 17 plays with the starting offense isn’t much to draw upon, but nine passes to eight runs tells us that Smith is likely to be much more run-heavy. Rather than simply say “Smith wants to run the ball,” though, let’s examine how he chose to do it against the Texans.

Three things stood out. First, Smith often used his tight ends as H-backs, meaning they aligned off the ball, and motioned them around the formation. He had them kicking out defensive ends, inserting on zone runs to block linebackers and coming down to wham-block defensive tackles. As the season progresses, Smith will have to be wary of creating an obvious tendency with his use of the H — namely, the H will take you to the point of attack — but it seems clear he intends to use his tight ends as lead blockers the way coordinators used fullbacks once upon a time.

Smith also had his wide receivers blocking in condensed formations. On one play, he aligned in a tight bunch set from 11-personnel with Freiermuth, Van Jefferson and 5’8-165 pound Calvin Austin III in the bunch (Pickens was split by himself on the back side). Smith then ran a toss sweep at the bunch and had Austin III block the safety. I gave Austin an “A for effort” on the play, which gained four yards, if not for execution. While you may scratch your head at the use of Austin III as an in-line blocker, teams like the Rams and 49ers have been able to use star receivers like Cooper Kupp and Brandon Aiyuk in similar fashion by getting them to buy in to the culture the offense is trying to establish. To play receiver in Smith’s offense, this seems true as well.

Finally, we saw a little bit of everything schematically in the run game. There were a couple of outside zone runs, that toss sweep I mentioned, inside zone, zone insert, the wham play and even an old-school guard trap. The Steelers used six different schemes on their eight run plays with the starting unit. This didn’t include counter or power, which I assume will be included in their package. Smith looks like he will be multiple not just in his personnel use but with his scheme, too. This is great on paper, but the players have to execute well for it to be effective. It’s possible he is simply putting everything on film at this point and will start trimming the fat as he sees what they do best. For an offense that has hung its hat on zone runs the past few seasons, it will be interesting to see what Smith ultimately emphasizes.

POCKET MOVEMENT AND PLAY-ACTION PASSES

Perhaps the most exciting thing we saw from the first unit, and throughout the entire game, really, was heavy doses of play-action passing. Fields hooked up with Pickens and Jefferson on play-action throws and moved about the pocket frequently. There was a movement screen to Harris on the opening play and a tunnel screen off of boot action. Other than a couple of botched exchanges with center Nate Herbig, Fields looked comfortable and composed.

So too did backup Kyle Allen. Allen hit several play-action throws, including one for a touchdown to Connor Heyward off of an inside run fake. Allen missed a wide-open Austin III in the back of the end zone on a 4th-and-goal play in the 2nd quarter but otherwise turned in a solid performance. Collectively, the Steelers were 22-29 passing for 235 yards, which is especially encouraging considering their offensive line was dominated by Houston’s pass rush for much of the night (stay tuned for an article on that subject later this week). Much of their success came in the play-action game, which is something the Steelers haven’t had in years.

CONCLUSIONS

All in all, Smith came as advertised. The big groupings, emphasis on the run and use of play-action have been features of his scheme throughout his career. They look as though they’ll remain so in Pittsburgh. My early impression is, from an X-and-O standpoint, that his offense is sound, well-planned and diverse. The hope is he has the right pieces in Pittsburgh to make it work.