Fast-Rising QB Guru Could be Sleeper Option for Steelers OC

The Pittsburgh Steelers caught everyone off guard by requesting to interview Los Angeles Rams passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson on Monday. It is a stark deviation from the experienced coach that Mike Tomlin said he would prefer when he spoke with the media last Thursday.

But when you dig deeper, Robinson passes the other three criteria with flying colors. He runs a diverse scheme coming from the Sean McVay system, was a quarterback and has a quarterback background, and, of course, comes from outside the organization with little ties to the group.

If the Steelers are going to play it more accessible and not go for the option of someone who has already been an offensive coordinator, then the candidate pool widens. One other hot name on the market fits the bill- Texans quarterback coach Jerrod Johnson.

Like Robinson, Johnson is an extremely hot commodity on the market and might even be the favorite to land the Browns’ vacant offensive coordinator job. It’s not hard to see why teams would be gung-ho for Johnson. C.J. Stroud came into the league and put up one of the best rookie seasons in recent memory, leading the Texans to the postseason’s divisional round.

For the Steelers, Johnson checks the boxes of working with a young quarterback who saw instant success. The environment that Johnson created around Stroud allowed him to flourish immediately in the NFL. But the people Johnson has worked under make all the difference, too.

Before Johnson went to Houston, he was the assistant quarterbacks coach under Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota. So, yet again, there’s the Sean McVay branch. And more than that, he doubled that up in Houston by coming to work under Bobby Slowik from the Kyle Shanahan tree.

In other words, Johnson became a quick-rising star in the league because he develops quarterbacks and just so happens to come from the two most potent branches of offensive thought the league wants now. Given how much the Steelers dipped their toe into the Shanahan and McVay schemes, Johnson sure makes a lot of sense for them.

Will he land the job? I don’t know. But if Robinson gets an interview, it makes sense for Johnson to get a look from Mike Tomlin and Pittsburgh. The recent resume stands for itself and stacks up favorably, and the flavor of his influences seem to match where the Steelers want to go moving forward, too.