How Will Opposing Teams Defend Steelers New-Look Offense?

Comparing this to the type of defense that Russell Wilson-led offenses typically see if quite different. Only the Miami Dolphins and last year’s version of the Steelers saw more Cover-2 than the Broncos did in 2023. Towards the end of his Seattle Seahawks tenure, more and more teams started reverting to more two-high shells in order to combat Wilson’s deep ball prowess. When he entered the league, defensive coordinators were overly obsessed with trying to recreate the “Legion of Boom” but didn’t have the personnel to execute the plan efficiently.

Wilson’s ability to throw the ball down the field with touch and accuracy will hopefully help lift some of the space constraint concerns off of Smith’s offensive scheme. If teams want to live in the single-high world, that should allow them to create explosive plays by exploiting one on one coverages towards George Pickens. If defenses want to play light boxes and play split field coverages on the back end, it will become imperative for Pittsburgh to grind teams down by using their rushing attack.

The concerns around the pairing really rely on the timing aspect of Smith’s offense, particularly as it relates to the play-action game over the middle. Wilson’s a playmaking quarterback that likes to play out of structure and hunt big plays down the field but because of his short stature, he’s never been able to consistently access the intermediate middle part of the field. That’s a known deficiency that Smith will have to scheme but he’s going to have to adjust on his end as well. The pure drop back passing game in his offense isn’t something that offers much creativity or promise, with spacing, lack of detail and confusing route combinations littered all over the Falcons tape in recent seasons.

With Wilson costing the Steelers virtually nothing in terms of cap space and trading for Justin Fields, his leash will likely be shorter than the offensive coordinator. Fields has some of the same strengths: he’s a gifted deep ball thrower who is a big play machine with his legs, capable of exciting highlights that we used to see all over Wilson’s film before his athleticism began to decline. Like the starter, he also takes a ton of sacks and doesn’t often target the middle of the field with timing and precision due to a lack of anticipation in his arsenal as a passer.

In the event that Fields does have to enter the lineup at some point, the biggest advantage to that would be his effect as a runner. Running quarterbacks give you a +1 advantage in the box and Smith has utilized running quarterbacks well in the past: with Ryan Tannehill, Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder all providing value in this regard despite none of those guys being the type of athlete that Fields is. Ideally, you want to see Smith’s offense evolve past being so reliant on the running game but there’s a realistic scenario where this becomes their best approach if the passing game doesn’t mesh quickly enough.

With their defense mostly intact with plenty of talent galore, Pittsburgh’s offense remains the biggest question mark heading into the season. Their rushing attack will be their bread and butter, but the passing game has questions that will need to be answered before taking them seriously in such a talented conference with a plethora of high-powered offenses. Smith, Wilson and potentially Fields, all have a huge opportunity to revitalize their careers in 2024. The Steelers fate depends on it.