The Pittsburgh Steelers made their 2024 offensive coordinator decision, bringing on former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith. His resume aligns with the goals Pittsburgh aspires to build upon. This includes more consistent success on the ground, utilizing heavy personnel, and the hire makes a lot of sense.
Today, I wanted to look at an element that Smith will hopefully bring with him to Pittsburgh as well: play-action. Here’s a visual of 2023 play-action attempts and yards per attempt, with darker logos for the Falcons and Steelers to see how they fared:
The two teams were on the opposite ends of the spectrum, with Pittsburgh ranking dead last in play-action attempts this season (80), pairing this with a low 30th-ranked 6.