Arthur Smith's Offense, Part Two : The Passing Game

Steeler fans welcome to another call sheet breakdown this is Kevin Smith with you picking up where we left off last week last week we looked at the uh Run game of Steelers new offens coordinator Arthur Smith and today we're going to look at his passing game and honestly I I've I've been thinking about the best way to do this there's really so much volume that you have to digest when you're thinking about something as broad as a passing game we can look at his his play action game his boot game what he does from the pocket Etc but I think the best way to break it down is to look at what Arthur Smith does conceptually what is he trying to do with his past schemes with his designs and how is he trying to help the quarterback by structuring A system that is quarterback friendly and fairly easy to read and one of the best ways he does that is with a use of triangular reads in the passing game and so that's really where our focus is going to be today Arthur Smith and his use of triangular reads all right so what are triangular reads you might ask I mean honestly it's it's pretty much what it sounds like it's it's the creation of a triangle in the route scheme that will allow the quarterback to either a isolate a Defender uh I shouldn't say either both isolate a Defender and then also keep uh his eyes in the same part of the field so that he doesn't have to move his head much while he's going through his progression one of the things that makes things difficult on a quarterback is if you ask him to have primary read on one part of the field his secondary read on another part of the field he's got to reorient himself as he moves his eyes across the field and that's something I thought that the Steelers struggled with with Kenny picket over the first two years simplifying his reads so let's look at one way that Smith does it and and he does it again with the simple creation of a triangle in the route so you're going to look at the three receivers to the bottom of the screen here we're GNA get a deep Corner route to to attack the back of the End Zone by the point man in this bunch the outside receiver is going to run bit of a speed out here and the inside receiver is just going to kind of hitch up right here and what you'll notice in in this design is that we've got it'll look a little bit more uh a little bit more like a real triangle when we when we see it on film but you've got the creation of a triangle that allows the quarterback really to keep his eyes in one area of the field and to move from read to read with some some suddenness and and lack of clutter and remember we say it all the time you know slow mind equals equals slow feet or and the more your mind is cluttered the less you react well so let's take a look real quick at how this plays out you're going to watch Taylor hinei now is he's going to get his re and he's going to drop this ball beautifully to the corner of the end zone that's Kyle pitts's very talented tight end in Atlanta uh one more time again man let's let's look real quick at the creation of the triangle that we're talking about okay look at the spacing of the routes here you can see right as pits takes this a little bit deeper and that route develops outside the creation of that triangle right there that's really what Taylor hinek is focusing on now I would be lying if I told you exactly what his read is here right I mean I hear a lot of guys doing breakdowns telling you oh oh they read this this and this and you know I'm not criticizing those guys but I don't think any of us really know exactly what the read progression is or the key Defender uh because we're not in the film we're not in the in the rooms were not there on the practice fields we don't know if I had to make a guess I would guess that we're reading off the safety here because it's one high and that hinei wants to make sure if it's one high right that he attacks he he throws his deep ball and that if it's too high he checks it down right here and so he's going to get one high and he'll throw this thing aggressively to the corner puts it right on the money touchdown to Kyle Pitts again one more time through watch hani's head here watch how his head is able to just stay in the same spot he doesn't doesn't have to reorient his feet he keeps his platform square and he can deliver a good ball knowing that all his reads are right in front of him all right here's another one let's see how Atlanta gets to the triangle on this one they're going to do this off of play action little bit different uh concept here as to how they get there now you're going to take Pitts who's lined up as an inline tight end and you're going to run him on a wheel route up the sideline right you're going to get your your wide receiver here to attack the middle of the field and the running back off the play fake is now going to work out here to the flat and now we're going to create the triangle just like this we're going to have that look hinek off of his off of his drop you're going to see him take a nice drop right here and then off the play fake he'll get his eyes in the middle of the field reading that safety right there and he wants to see the movement of that safety for where to go with the football play fake eyes to the middle of the field he winds up throwing that thing to his his wide out my guess on this play is that the wide outs got a a a read recognition where he's looking at the safety and he needs to know is this middle of the field open or middle of the field closed and by that if the safety's in sitting in the middle like that he's going to read that as middle of the field closed and he's going to just sit down with his route like he does here right he's going to sit down there if the safety were to be moving out in this fashion and this safety breaking in that in that fashion he would wind up taking this to the post and splitting the safeties that's called middle of the field open so it's an option route and he sits it down right here and there's the throw for the first down all right nice ball there delivered by hinek but again why let's look at the triangle that they create here right really nicely done you can see it develop right there and again what ises what does this do for Taylor hinek right as you'll see pits get a little further up the field here and we create the triangle right there it allows hinei to keep his eyes largely in the same place his head largely in the same place if he doesn't like this he's going to throw throw the ball right here right again to his wide receiver if he doesn't like it all he's got to do is move his eyes out here to pits or move you know slightly reorient his feet to drop the ball down to his running back swinging out but it's not it's not one of these things where he's got to come all the way back across the field right just to reorient himself and find his secondary read so again the triangle helps a quarterback really really speed himself up as he moves from through his progression here's another one man this is a thing of beauty little play action pass on the goal line they're going to motion the tight end Kyle pits across and then off a play fake to the running back really attack down the middle of the field man creating the triangle now in the middle of the field play action attacking the middle of the field these are all things that Steeler fans should be excited about things that we haven't seen we talked about simplifying the quarterback's reads how how you get that in the Triangle read concept I mean look at that that's a that's a beautiful thing man that Ball's a little bit on the backside shoulder you you'd like to see the QB get that out there in front of him a little bit more but again man uh watch the reaction of the linebackers to the play fake here how aggressively they all jump up look at look at the bind the linebackers are already in I mean you got your backers here and here and here they've all jumped up meanwhile this is pits right behind him right sneaking behind them as he's going to get to the middle of the field on his route hinei pretty easy gets to step in right there now and dump that ball down right over the middle he's got a nice he's got a nice window right here to to throw the football into but again we're talking about creating the triangle right here it is right here right look at this Triangle what does the triangle do it gives it gives his quarterback three options with his his head and eyes and feet all oriented in the same position right on the same platform he doesn't have to reorient and again speeding up the quarterback it allows the quarterback to speed up and if there's one thing that we've wanted to see in Pittsburgh with Kenny picket it's for him to process faster well you know sometimes that's not on the quarterback I'm not absolving Kenny picket but but there are times when you look at the Pittsburgh passing game over the last two years where they have not been very quarterback friendly not given the quarterback simple reads like this and we're and we're seeing a lot of it from the Arthur Smith offense here's a little bootleg action for you this is coming against man coverage boy I really like this Design This is is a nice little play design especially against man when you're going to get your your your triangle formed with a deep out here from your from your outside receiver you're going to get a long intermediate cross there running away from coverage there on the backside and then this fullback right here you'll you'll see he won't get out into the route he winds up chopping down the edge player he's probably taught if the edge player this Edge player is going to come aggressively and he's probably been taught if the edge player is going to threaten the QB on the boot block them and chop them down if not you get out into the route and and so you're you're really gonna ideally get that third route in the Triangle coming there from that fullback into the flat again here's your triangle being created against man coverage though the notion of the triangle is less important so much but the thing it's more important is making sure that that you run away from man coverage and right here you're going to get this matchup right and that's what they're going to run away from as they send pits all the way across the field and he's going to wind up making the catch fullback gets set here comes the boot action right this is Desmond Ridder at quarterback now pits working across the field right hits him with a strike right that's easy pickings man I mean again you get man coverage like this run away from the coverage right crossers are tough to cover manto man use the athleticism of your quarterback to move the pocket right that's good stuff Falcons versus Saints now in this one this might be my favorite clip on here watch the spacing of this route first of all play play action again something Steelers fans have been clamoring for more play action well here's a nice play action concept let's run it through real quick play action fake and we'll see the triangle develop and a beautiful strike there again attacking the middle of the field watch the route by the outside receiver tell me you can't see George Pickin running this route in Cut hit picking in stride you know maybe with picking and speed he takes that thing to the house but again look at the look at the routes look at the triangle develop man I'll let it go a little further look at this beautiful beautiful spacing this is why I really love this route right here this this thing is spaced so well between these three receivers and you've now created a bind for the defense they you you've got them now moving uh in various directions you got one route attacking the flat right here you got a Crosser here right then you got that intermediate dig that that really creates big windows that the defense has to has to defend but it's not confusing for the quarterback again man you look at Ritter's field of vision here right and and all he's really looking at is there to there he can see all three of his receivers in that same line of vision he doesn't have to reorient his feet he doesn't have to move his head again quarterback friendly this is a quarterback friendly passing game and that's probably the thing I'm the most excited about is how the structure of it benefits the quarterback all right one more for you watch the creativity of this play I really like this design what what are the Falcons doing man they're finding different ways to get to similar Concepts so this is bejon Robinson split wide he's going to come in motion and then he's going to work back and then into the middle of the field you're going to get a a whip route out here and then you're going to get the fullback into the flat right there again now right here's your triangle but again what are they doing right they're constantly creating these these well spaced routes that allow the quarterback on this is another one off of play action where where he's going to fake and now get set and again look what his field of vision is going to be okay his field of vision is going to be right here right here not very complicated complicated drawing I got a lot of lines on the field right there but again all of his routes are going to generally be in this sort of area right where he can site them all without having to really relocate his feet and his eyes very very user friendly and again A Creative Design to get to the same concept that we've been looking at over and over but just from a very very different look that one he checks down in the flat that was fullback man I would have loved to have seen Desmond Ritter just slide up in the pocket a step right when he hits his break right there slide up rather than come off the read to Robinson cuz he's looking for Robinson on the Crosser initially rather than rather than come off of that and dump it down into the flat I'd love to see him just right here man all right it it's it's it obviously looks covered right it obviously looks covered and this is the the kind of stuff that you you you know got to get young quarterbacks to he's got three guys around around bejon Robinson he certainly looks covered but watch what's going to happen if he just stays with it it's got he's got a big pocket he's getting a little bit of pressure pressure right here I mean if you're if you're a Ritter you just slide up in the pocket just a hair and you let Robinson come through you'll see they got an opportunity now maybe to hit something for a big one all right but you know nothing wrong with that he checks it down and they and they make a nice little gain on a really well-designed play so what are we seeing in the Smith passing game we're seeing a userfriendly scheme that simplifies things for the quarterback stresses defenses by spacing the field and of course that that leads you to the question of why why wasn't it better why wasn't the passing game better in some of the places he's been well obviously as we pointed out in the last film room he's a he's a run first guy uh he wants to run the ball but uh he did have a decent amount of success I mean look at the dvo rankings on the screen in front of you I mean dvoa I think is one of the best statistics out there I'm not going to take time to explain it now uh but really it it measures your play-by-play performance against the rest of the league and it takes in factors like competition and field conditions and uh the the the score at the time really really interesting way of looking at Stats uh and you look at at at where Arthur Smith's offenses have been back in Tennessee 2019 2020 top 10 dvoa eighth in the league in 2022 in Atlanta in dvoa and he had those two years in 2021 in 2023 where it wasn't very good it obviously hasn't been very good in Pittsburgh so can Arthur Smith with a a a userfriendly passing scheme get Kenny picket to where he needs to be didn't really work out with Desmond Ritter maybe that's more of an indictment of Desmond Ritter than it is of Arthur Smith either way we're gonna find out I'm excited I gotta tell you Steelers fans I was a little hesitant when they first signed uh Smith because of his failure to to bring Ritter along but the more I watch his scheme the more I think it's beneficial to quarterbacks all right that's our that's our breakdown of Arthur Smith's passing game we'll be back with more about him and all of Steel all the Steeler stuff throughout the offseason take care everybody

Channel: Steel Curtain Network

Views: 4,619

Keywords: Pittsburgh Steelers, Arthur Smith, Offensive Coordinator, Tennessee Titans, Atlanta Falcons, Steelers, Steelers News, Steelers Rumors, NFL News, NFL Rumors, Film Room, NFL Breakdown, Film Room Breakdown, Diontae Johnson, George Pickens, Calvin Austin III, Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder, Ryan Tannehill

Id: J-1qJlnyd7Y

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024