Steelers Absolutely See Kenny Pickett's Limitations After Arthur Smith Hire According To Super Bowl Champion

The Pittsburgh Steelers just lit the football news world on fire and took over all of the headlines as they have reportedly found themselves their next offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith. Smith was formerly the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons from 2021-2023. This report comes just two days after the Steelers interviewed Smith on Sunday. 

Coming to the Steelers, Smith has a mixed bag of results on offense that has most of Steeler Nation divided on whether he is a good hire for the team moving forward. Smith definitely plays into the way the Steelers want their offense to work based on his time as the offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans, and that should give the Steelers reason to be optimistic if he can recreate that in Pittsburgh. 

Steelers Need To Get Better At The Quarterback Position Despite New OC Hire

Only time will tell if this hire ends up as a success for the Steelers' offense, but one former Steelers player believes that this hire, paired with Art Rooney II giving Kenny Pickett a vote of confidence saying the team feels "comfortable" with him, limits the upside of the offense and ultimately the team as a whole. That would be former Steelers' offensive lineman, Trai Essex, who shared his thoughts on the hire shortly after the news broke. 

"This hire just tells me they see Kenny’s limitations and want to emphasize the run game and take as much as they can off the QBs plate. Hoping to recreate what was in Tennessee from a few years ago. The problem with that is, despite a few playoff wins, there was a hard ceiling with those teams in today’s NFL."

The thought that you need to have a quarterback that is near the top of the league to truly make a deep playoff run, and ultimately win the Super Bowl, is not unique to Essex in this scenario. Evidence of this is the 2019 Titans which lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the conference championship round after getting wins in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Eventually, it came down to the fact that Patrick Mahomes was able to put on a stellar performance for the Chiefs that Ryan Tannehill simply couldn't match. Ultimately, that lead to the Chiefs winning their first Super Bowl with Mahomes as their quarterback and maybe the beginning of a dynasty. 

That being said, you do have cases of quarterbacks being able to make deep playoff runs and have legit chances to win a Super Bowl, without necessarily being considered to be an elite option at their position. An example of that is this season in fact, as Brock Purdy isn't talked about in the same breath as people like Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, etc., despite leading his team to a Super Bowl and playing very well doing so. 

Now, everything needs to line up to do that, and one shouldn't expect Pickett to all of a sudden have a season like Purdy did in 2023 now that Smith is on board. There is a large gap between the way Purdy and Pickett are playing currently, but hopefully the hire of Smith can close that gap a little. 

Essex did add some positive thoughts to the chat however, as all Steelers fans realize they need to improve across the offensive line and continue to improve upon their strengths in the run game. Smith is someone that can help them in that aspect. 

"Because of this hire, they will emphasize improvement on the OL thru the draft & free agency. Center in the 1st or 2nd round [and one of] the top tackles in free agency."

Evaluating and improving the offensive line definitely has gotten emphasis in recent seasons, and Head Coach Mike Tomlin is clearly still focused on that by giving one of the top offensive line prospects some additional attention at the Resse's Senior Bowl, that being Jackson Powers-Johnson. 

One thing is for certain, and that is the Steelers will be entering the 2024 season in a much better spot from an offensive coordinator perspective with Smith calling the plays than they did in 2023 with Matt Canada being allowed to stick around. 

Let us know below about your thoughts on the Smith hire, and if you think Essex is right with his thoughts on this limiting the team's upside!

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