Don't listen to Steelers fans.
For a football fan in Ohio, such words should be heeded at all times. In this instance, however, I'm simply referring to comments about Ohio State's new offensive coordinator and his pairing with a first-ballot, Hall-of-Fame quarterback.
While many 11W readers surely wish I was referencing Justin Fields' six starts for Smith in 2024, I am, of course, talking about this past season when Aaron Rodgers lined up under center in Pittsburgh. Although they won the AFC North, the Steelers ranked near the middle of the pack in most offensive categories, leaving a fanbase with high expectations wanting (much) more.
Now, having traveled just a couple of hours west on I-70, Smith will have to answer to a fanbase with championship aspirations even more grand than those in the Steel City.
As we discussed earlier this month, Smith seems to have been brought in to iron out the executional errors that plagued the Buckeyes all season long, and ultimately, underpinned the two losses that ended their season. But Smith is also expected to be the one calling plays on Saturdays, meaning the passing game will be under his direction as well - and this is where the Steelers fans have been the most vocal.
The Pittsburgh passing game was largely uninspiring in 2025, especially in clear passing situations like 3rd & long. In these instances, the Steelers often relied on simple, split-field concepts that provided different answers for the QB based on what he saw from the defense.
However, in today's NFL, more creativity is required as defenses are more prepared than ever to put a lid on such play-calls.
Many of these concepts are staples of the West Coast system, originally pioneered by Bill Walsh, which was predicated on short, timing patterns that stretch the defense horizontally. Today, those passing concepts can be found in every playbook from Pop Warner to the Pros, but the Steelers' level of reliance on them last season would have been a surprise to many if not for Rodgers' presence.
The former Packer legend won a Super Bowl with Mike McCarthy, himself a member of the Bill Walsh coaching tree via Paul Hackett, radioing many such plays into his helmet. Rodgers later won a pair of MVP awards once Matt LaFleur took over for McCarthy, leading many to expect Rodgers and Smith to mesh, given the history between those two coaches.
Smith inherited the Titan's OC job when LaFleur left for Green Bay, keeping much of the system in place and, ultimately, earning the Falcons head coaching job. But although LeFleur also comes from the Walsh tree (via Mike Shanahan), the two worked together for just one season (2018), meaning Smith was never a true disciple of the system and only kept certain pieces.
But Smith still tried to acclimate his system to fit his legendary QB, relying on a bevy of quick game concepts. Rodgers targeted receivers below 10 air yards on 71.5% of his attempts this season, the highest rate by any quarterback in the last three years. This came despite being pressured on just 21.5% of his dropbacks, the lowest rate of any quarterback in the league.
While LeFleur and Rodgers seemed to work well together, Smith never seemed to find a similar rhythm with the QB. With Rodgers rarely pushing the ball downfield, the Steelers would often find themselves in the kinds of 3rd down passing scenarios like the one shown above.
But it's not as though Smith did nothing to help his QB in those situations, either. All too often, Rodgers would opt to ignore pre-snap indicators given to him by the coordinator and instead throw low-percentage, one-on-one routes that failed to pan out.
A clip of Rodgers throwing an ill-advised back-shoulder fade on 3rd down can be found in nearly every Steeler game last season, but as the video above shows - those don't seem to be on the play-caller. This is not to say that the Steeler passing was an abject disaster, entirely, however.
As noted above, most of Pittsburgh passing metrics were around the league average, finishing the regular season ranked 17th in EPA per passing play. Something had to have been working.
Much like had been the case when Smith initially found play-calling success in Tennessee, he once again found it with the play-action passing game. Not only does Smith do an excellent job of masking run concepts, he extends that element of disguise to set up the pass.
While the concepts he calls (such as the three-level Flood concept below) are far from unique, the manner in which he sets them up with personnel and pre-snap movement creates confusion for the defense.
Such rollout concepts were a staple of Ryan Day's offense with Justin Fields under center in 2019 and '20, later reemerging more often when another mobile QB in Will Howard took over the huddle in '24. But they were a weekly staple last season for the young Julian Sayin, who attempted more play-action passes than any OSU signal-caller since Day came to Columbus.
Play-action passes aren't all bootlegs, however, as many concepts look to pull the defense forward to stop the run before throwing deep over their heads. This element was perhaps the most defining piece of Smith offenses in Tennessee, with defenses focusing on Derrick Henry handoffs as A.J. Brown hauled in deep balls in the secondary.
In Smith's first season in Pittsburgh, he had one of the best deep ball throwers of his era in Russell Wilson, although injuries limited how often he was on the field. On the rare occasion Wilson suited up, the Steelers unlocked an ability to stretch the field by attacking coverages with well-designed concepts from heavy personnel groupings that often only featured two or three receivers going out in a pattern.
This area was another in which Smith's pairing with Rodgers simply wasn't a fit, given the latter's inability to push the ball downfield. The 42-year-old completed just 8 of 34 passes of 20+ air yards last season, the 3rd lowest completion percentage (23.5%) in the NFL.
Meanwhile, Sayin was proving to be not only one of the best in the nation, but the best in a long line of elite Buckeye QBs at making such throws.
| Player | Year | % of Attempts w/ Play-Action | Play-Action Comp % | % of Attempts 20+ Yds | 20+ Yds Comp % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Julian Sayin | 2025 | 43.0% | 78.9% | 12.8% | 62.0% |
| Will Howard | 2024 | 38.2% | 78.7% | 11.1% | 57.4% |
| Kyle McCord | 2023 | 31.4% | 69.6% | 13.6% | 50.0% |
| C.J. Stroud | 2022 | 37.6% | 69.1% | 15.6% | 50.8% |
| C.J. Stroud | 2021 | 30.0 | 73.7% | 14.0% | 51,6% |
| Justin Fields | 2020 | 33.5% | 74.0% | 14.2% | 59.4% |
| Justin Fields | 2019 | 35.6% | 59.1% | 21.9% | 46.2% |
| Dwayne Haskins | 2018 | 22.7% | 66.4% | 13.5% | 43.1% |
| J.T. Barrett | 2017 | 34.9% | 69.1% | 15.5% | 27.6% |
“We feel like we have the best quarterback coming back in college football next year,” Day said of Sayin this winter, and his ability to connect downfield is a big reason why. It certainly didn't hurt that that he was targeting Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate on most of those attempts, both of whom could turn 50-50 balls into 70-30 (or better).
Throughout the middle part of the season, Sayin exploded onto the national scene by hitting multiple deep passes off play-action from the heavy sets seen in Smith's offenses, like the one below:
Yet as the table above also shows, Sayin attempted fewer such passes than most of his predecessors, as defenses played conservatively and often bracketed (double-teamed) his favorite targets, forcing him to check the ball down underneath.
With Tate off to the NFL, Smith will receive even more attention, making the job of Ohio State's offensive coordinator that much more important in 2026. For that reason, the hire of Arthur Smith makes sense, as his strengths as a play-caller appear to mesh perfectly with those of his QB.
According to Day, “Julian has been awesome here, and really wants to make sure that we have guys around him and an offense together that we can go win the whole thing and reach our goals.”
Clearly, that comment extends beyond just the personnel on the field, but to the coaching staff off it as well.
