The Minkah Fitzpatrick Trade Makes Arthur Smith’s Offense Stronger
It has been a wild offseason thus far for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Compared to their approach to the offseason in the past, 2025 could not be more different. Omar Khan and company are not afraid to make bold but logical moves to try and make this team better. Not even a month after Aaron Rodgers officially signed on for the 2025 campaign, a trade was announced sending S Minkah Fitzpatrick back to the Miami Dolphins. In exchange, the Steelers received CB Jalen Ramsey and TE Jonnu Smith. Late round 2027 draft picks were also swapped.
While there of course is talk within the fanbase surrounding the Fitzpatrick departure and the addition of Ramsey, Jonnu Smith is a great pickup. I’ll admit, when the news first broke, I was a bit confused by the move. Freiermuth and Washington are talented tight ends; why would the Steelers add another? The more I considered this and discussed it with people, but more I began to really like this move. While the Dolphins have had their ups and downs over the past few seasons, Jonnu Smith is a talented pass catcher and can absolutely make plays. More than once, I watched Smith step up in key situations for his quarterback last season. This happened regardless of whether Tua Tagovailoa or a backup was commanding the offense. Regardless of how deep the tight end room may be already, a team dying for more consistent production on offense would be silly to pass up on another who can certainly be a playmaker.
Looking back at Jonnu Smith’s career, he has played for three seasons under Arthur Smith. The duo spent two years together in Tennessee. A few years later, they were reunited in Atlanta. After Arthur brought in some other familiar faces last season to Pittsburgh including Scotty Miller and Van Jefferson, this is not a surprising move to me. I get the feeling that Arthur likes what Jonnu brings to the table, and I’m sure at this point Jonnu is very familiar with the type of offense Arthur likes to run.
Aside from the fact that the two men have a history of working together, Jonnu Smith makes the Steelers offense better under Arthur Smith. Sure, the Steelers still don’t have a clear bonafide WR2 on their roster. It was a problem last year, and looking at the team on paper, it could very well be a problem again this year. There is another angle to consider here, though. Arthur Smith loves to run the football.
Running the football effectively really opens up the play action pass for an offense. What if, instead of predominantly utilizing formations with 2+ WRs, the Steelers decided to run a lot of 3 TE sets? If they made this a staple in their offense, it would open up possibilities for them. Jaylen Warren and Kaleb Johnson can run, run, run behind the big boys up front. If the running game is productive, teams will likely have to stack the box on defense and defend it. In this situation, running the play action pass may be ideal, especially when 3 TEs that can catch the ball are on the field. Oh, and I almost forgot, DK Metcalf would likely be lined up on the outside. Aaron Rodgers has cemented a legacy as an accurate quarterback whose ball security is unmatched. He is more than capable, even in the late stages of his career, to put this offense in a position to succeed.
While it isn’t exactly the same scenario, I can’t help but think about the New England Patriots in the era of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. In no way am I comparing Freiermuth to Gronk, but those teams were so successful running 2 TE sets consistently. Opposing defenses often had to pick their poison, as it was very difficult to defend both men effectively. Tom Brady, of course, was the master of effectively distributing the football. This only helped the situation for the Patriots at this time. I think Aaron Rodgers could easily fill this role for Pittsburgh. In my mind, something like this would be the best-case scenario for the 2025 Steelers and their tight end room.
After the end of the 2024 season, I was an incredibly frustrated fan who did not have much excitement heading into 2025. That’s changing with every offseason move that happens. While this team is very different from the teams of the past, I can’t wait to see where the Steelers go this season. Here’s to ending that playoff draught!
What are your thoughts on the recent trade and on Jonnu Smith? Share them below and join the discussion!
The passing game in Pittsburgh has been so inefective that stacked boxes are the defacto defense they face, and will continue to face until they can beat it. They can’t effectively run into it, and have not been able to make teams pay with a verticle game. I don’t see Jonnu Smith changing this at all.
An effective WR2 remains necessary for Pgh’s offense, and the OL must show improvement. Jonnu is only helping the passing game slightly.
If at all. I’m hoping for an X’s and O’s article showing how Jonnu fits in here, but I just have no faith in this teams ability to scheme plays to maximize a players skillset. They seem to have predefined roles, and plop player X into said role regardless of fit.
I think Kevin Smith is planning an article on Smith. May even be out today.
From what I’ve seen of Smith, he is not a field stretcher. Prior to last year he averaged 15 first downs a year. He’s not really a red zone guy either, with 28 TDs in 8 years (8 last year). That’s one fewer TD a year then ‘muth averages. He also has averaged only 2 plays over 20 yards per year from what I’ve read.
Where he might be valuable is on 2nd downs when he can take a short pass, get YAC and either get a 1st down or within makeable third. But that is really the plodding offense we dispayed the last few years, just replacing run, run pass with run, short 2nd down pass, run to try to consume TOP and matriculate the ball up the field.
The Ravens make that work, but that’s because they have runners who can break big plays in Henry and Jackson. The Steelers like to talk about Warren’s big play potential, but as a runner, he’s rarely showed it. Najee had far more big runs last year than Warren did. If he is the back carrying the ball the most, I expect that will drop even further.
It will be interesting to see how they incorporate Smith with Warren and K. Johnson, both of who have talent as receivers who will also be running short routes meant to get them in space to make plays.
Perhaps the addition of Smith will create some openings there.
Last year I was seriously dissapointed the Steelers didn’t use Harris as a receiver as often as I thought they could. In those scenarios, I envisioned play action where receivers were sent deep to spread the field and fluster the defense into making mistakes, then capitalized with underneath routes to Harris. This would be predicated on the idea that when he was in the game, they would be likely to run the ball.
That never materialized but I think they have the same potential to do it this year with K. Johnson. Line up receivers spread wide (Metcalf and Austin or Wilson), Have Two TEs in the game – Smith and Washington and JOhnson in the backfield. Execute play action, send the receivers deep, have Smith and Jonhson run short routes, one toward the sideline, one curling toward mid field. This hopefully draws safeties and CBs back and puts these two one on one with an LB to beat and lots of room for YAC.
I agree Najee should have been more active in the passing game, especially considering they couldn’t get him going from the backfield. They should want to use Warren in the passing game too, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
After all the noise about QB mobility I was really disappointed with the Fields usage. They didn’t seem to be interested in using him in designed runs when he was starting, and then telegraphed his plays on the rere times they did use him when Russ was QB.
I completely agree! Fields’ mobility was NOT utilized like it should have been last season. Disappointing for sure and tough to watch.
Kevin Smith is great when it comes to film studies and x’s and o’s articles. I’m sure one will be coming!
In terms of Jonnu Smith and his usage, I’m intrigued. kaleb Johnson is supposed to be a better fit for the scheme Arthur Smith likes to run (outside zone) than Najee Harris was. I’m hoping that he will come into his own rather quickly to compliment Warren and the the run game can be more effective this year. Hopefully, this will open up more opportunities in the passing game all around, including for the tight ends.
Honestly, I think a lot hinges on how the offensive line plays this year. If they struggle, I fear it will be another long season for Steelers fans when the offense takes the field. In this article, I wanted to discuss the best case scenario I could think of with the addition of Jonnu Smith. Unfortunately I guess we won’t know what the Steelers offense looks like until we actually see them play!
Agreed re OL performance, they will make Pgh go.
Paging Coach Kevin Smith!!
Maybe Tomlin should watch a few of his videos.
And/or Arthur Smith. Without popcorn.