Newly minted offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and the Pittsburgh Steelers picked up a win in his first game with the franchise on Sunday, coincidentally on the road against the team that Smith was just fired from: The Atlanta Falcons. While the Steelers offense didn't necessarily light up the field with backup quarterback Justin Fields, Smith at least didn't show any of the bizarre ineptitude that plagued the Falcons during his time with that franchise.
The player of the day on offense for Pittsburgh was wide receiver George Pickens, who played his college football about an hour away from Atlanta with the Georgia Bulldogs and continued to look like a legitimate number one wide receiver to open up the 2024 campaign.
One of Pickens' biggest plays of the day occurred right before halftime, when he was matched up with Falcons Pro Bowl safety Jessie Bates and made a tremendous catch against him to set the Steelers up in field goal range.
After the game, Smith revealed that he and Bates actually exchanged text messages about the play later on, per Brooke Pryor of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.
“He said, you caught me sleeping right before the half. I said, yeah, lulled you to sleep, get disinterested,” said Smith. “And we set him up on that situationally, but he's a great player sometimes it's just very practical.”
Smith also revealed that he intentionally chose not to throw in the middle of the field due to Bates' brilliance.
“Our Jason Bourne — TJ Watt — wrecked the game, theirs didn't,” said Smith, via Mark Kaboly of The Pat McAfee Show.
An up and down debut for Smith
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Seeing the Steelers continuously go to George Pickens on Sunday had to be extremely frustrating for Falcons fans, who are all too familiar with Arthur Smith's propensity to blatantly ignore the most talented offensive players on the field during his time with Atlanta and use them as decoys for journeymen to try to make plays.
Smith made sure to get the ball into his playmakers' hands on Sunday, even if it only ended up in 18 points for the team, which saw its defense thoroughly dominate Atlanta's offense throughout the afternoon.
The Steelers of course were operating without the services of projected starting quarterback Russell Wilson, who is once again expected to miss this Sunday's game. Whether or not Fields will stay in as the starter once Wilson is healthy remains to be seen. Fields, another former Georgia player, didn't look spectacular on Sunday, but he did take care of the ball and use his legs to make some plays when needed.
In any case, Sunday's game on the road vs the Denver Broncos is slated to get started at 4:05 PM ET.
