Former Steelers QB Optimistic About Arthur Smith's offense 'Scratching The Surface'
Charlie Batch Sees Plenty of Upside for Justin Fields, Arthur Smith's Steelers Offense
The Pittsburgh Steelers are unbeaten through the first two weeks of the season and are playing a familiar brand of football that has become a calling card of the Iron City.
While the Steelers offense has made incremental steps towards joining the 21st century of offensive football that prioritizes the downfield passing game, Pittsburgh is unblemished through two weeks largely because T.J. Watt has two sacks, six quarterback pressures, and has been a human eraser of opposing offenses and running back Najee Harris is ranked among the NFL’s top-15 leading rushers.
Still, all but six of the Steelers’ points through two games have come off the toe of kicker Chris Boswell.
“It’s surprising,” former Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch said of the Steelers’ offense during an appearance on the Between The Hashmarks Podcast. “And I say surprising, in that they haven’t been able to score touchdowns.”
Batch believes that there is a key difference between what Smith and the Steelers’ offense has shown through the first two weeks and what Pittsburgh had been repping in practice throughout the spring and summer.
“When I watched them all through training camp, they were moving the ball up and down using the middle of the field, and then you get to Week 1 and they don’t use the middle of the field. That reason being Falcons safety Jessie Bates, [Arthur Smith]’s experience with him in Atlanta, and he’s saying ‘Listen, I am not letting him disrupt the game because of Jessie Bates’ resumé.
“Especially when you’re talking about Bates having over 200 tackles over the past two years, 10 interceptions, so that element you’re looking at and saying ‘this guy is not going to disrupt the game.’ So, you don’t use the middle of the field in that game, then you get to Denver, and they’re pushing the ball downfield using play-action but it was negated by penalties. I think we’re just scratching the surface of what Arthur Smith’s offense truly looks like.”
If Steelers fans are looking for reasons to be optimistic that Batch is correct, and that these first two games have merely been a movie trailer for what’s to come from Smith’s offense, the fact that Justin Fields has yet to commit a turnover and has been as accurate as he has been at any point in his career should inspire hope.
Remember, under Matt Canada last season, Kenny Pickett led all Steelers quarterbacks in passing yards off play-action … and finished 36th in the league. Fields currently ranks 20th in the category, underscoring the value of an added wrinkle in Smith’s scheme.
Imagine if Fields continues to build confidence and Smith continues to lean into the play-action game that only becomes more effective the more heavily Smith and Jaylen Warren are utilized as battering rams and Fields uses his mobility to keep offenses honest.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin revealed that Justin Fields will once again start in Week 3, over Russell Wilson, which could give Smith the chance to throw open the playbook just a bit more given it marks the 25-year-old’s third start since being told hours before the regular season opener he’d be getting the nod.
“Justin Fields has experience,” Batch explains. “When you talk about over 2,200 yards rushing and being able to add that element to the offense that wasn’t necessarily here in years past, I think Mike Tomlin was really looking for Russell [Wilson] to fill that leadership void for Justin Fields for whenever he would be called upon, we just didn’t know it was going to happen this soon.”
Fields’ numbers may be underwhelming, passing for 273 yards and a touchdown through two weeks, but he has completed 69.5 percent of his passes while adding 84 rushing yards and competently running an offense that looks capable of being a complementary force to one of the league’s most dominant defenses.
While Pittsburgh, thanks in part to its personnel as well as the franchise’s reputation, is always going to feature tight ends Pat Freiermuth and Washington heavily with a healthy dose of Harris and Warren pounding the ball out of the backfield, Batch believes there will be more concepts that reveal themselves throughout the season.
“I think a lot of it is going to be week-to-week,” Batch says. “Especially when you get into division [play] and the weather changes, you want to see that kind of in the second half of the year. But, when you look at the manner of the roster, with Pat Freiermuth and Washington, who can move people around with his 6-foot-7 and almost 300 pounds, and he shows his pass-catching ability with his first touchdown catch of the year last week. This is the kind of stuff [Smith] gets excited about.
“There are a lot of options that he has, so you know he’s going to utilize those three-tight-end sets and just a matter of being able to pick those third downs up, giving yourself a new set of downs to see this offense flourish. I expect them to use a lot of that play-action game and getting Freiermuth a lot more involved the more we get into this season.”
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Best of The Batch
Charlie Batch is the CEO of the Best of The Batch Foundation, which provides year-round educational programming for nearly 4,000 school-age children throughout Western Pennsylvania, and just recently opened a new state-of-the-art clubhouse to give kids a safe haven both before and after school.
“We just celebrated 25 years this past April,” Batch explains. “We’re an educational foundation and we focus on our STEAM programs and we focus on after-school time. We have a phenomenal team.
“As we move forward, we just expanded from 5,300 square feet to 33,000 square feet. The reason why we built the building, and kids don’t want to leave, which is why we built the building and we’re super excited about that. It takes a lot of our time to run 11 to 13 different programs throughout the course of the year.”
The program’s new facility includes a wellness center, learning areas, a gym, basketball court, a learning environment, and an indoor walking track to give children a place to spend their after-school hours as part of a community and away from some of the temptations that could lead to trouble during what may be otherwise unsupervised time away from school.
To donate, or find out more, visit the Best of The Batch Foundation.