Arthur Smith already broke trust as Steelers OC with latest incident

How many times in the past two years did we hear former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith adamantly defend his starting quarterback only to pull him when it was too late?

The contradicting comments Smith made played a role in owner Arthur Blank's decision to fire him. Now, he is the offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers and he already pulled the same move. This time, it resulted in a couple of significant quarterback trades.

Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is already contradicting himself

Arthur Smith has had a chaotic two seasons. As the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, he spent weeks and weeks defending 2022's starting quarterback Marcus Mariota, only to eventually bench him.

In 2023, he kept defending Desmond Ridder only to bench him twice. This, ironically, caused former Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw to berate Smith on a pregame show. Unsurprisingly, Bradshaw has since gone full Arthur Smith by taking those comments back.

After being hired by the Steelers as their new offensive coordinator, Smith talked about his excitement to work with starting quarterback Kenny Pickett.

"There’s a relationship that’s got to be built between me and Kenny. And that’s so paramount between the playcaller and the quarterback. The quarterback is obviously the one out there between the white lines, and there’s a trust that’s going to be built daily, and it goes both ways. I’ve got to earn Kenny’s trust and vice versa as we build this offense and all the things we want to work on, and we want him to work on and take command of this offense."

- Arthur Smith

It didn't even take two months before Kenny Pickett was moving East to Philadelphia.

The quick breakdown happened after the signing of Russell Wilson. The Steelers traded Pickett to the Eagles and subsequently traded for Justin Fields.

Did Smith have to talk so candidly about his "starting quarterback?" No, absolutely not.

If you are in the Steelers locker room how can you ignore that considering his history? It is one thing to be noncommittal and another to give full "trust" to a guy that you end up burning. This is not going to work out.