The Pittsburgh Steelers are parting ways with offensive coordinator Matt Canada the club announced Tuesday.
Following a 13-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns, the club opted to relieve their beleaguered OC of his duties as it became evident that the team’s offensive deficiencies weren’t improving.
“Matt Canada has been relieved of his duties as offensive coordinator. I appreciate Matt’s hard work and dedication and I wish him the best moving forward in his career,” head coach Mike Tomlin said in a statement.
Pittsburgh has been held to 10 points or fewer in 40% of their games in 2023, and have averaged only 16.6pts per contest thus far. Their offense currently ranks 28th in points per game across the NFL, 28th in yards per game (280.1), and 31st in passing yards per game (170) in 2023. Even more damning is the fact that they’ve been outgained yardage wise in every game played this season.
The 51 year old had been the team’s offensive coordinator since 2021, though his struggles to get the offense to click extend beyond just this fall. Chants of “Fire Canada” have been heard not only at Steelers games, but also Pirates, and Penguins games during his tenure with the club as well.
While Tomlin had thus far shown loyalty to his OC, the troubling trend of subpar offensive performances was epitomized by 2nd year QB Kenny Pickett, whom the team spent a 1st round selection on, appearing to regress in his 2nd year in the NFL under Canada. His completion percentage, yards per attempt, QBR, and Sack % were all trending in the wrong direction, despite the fact that by most metrics, Pickett’s 2022 season didn’t set the bar very high for his 2nd foray into NFL action.
The final nail in the coffin however appears to have been the team’s 13-10 slugfest against division rivals Cleveland this past weekend. Despite playing against a Browns unit that was without their starting quarterback or star running back due to season ending injuries, the club couldn’t take advantage of a team that was ripe for the picking.
Pittsburgh wound up accumulating only 77 passing yards on the day, and punted the ball 9 times. Not only that, but they also went 3 for 14 on third down, resulting in numerous three-and-outs despite regularly starting with the ball in plus territory because of their team’s strong defensive performance.
Second year wideout George Pickens previously took to social media to release some cryptic posts about his displeasure with the system and his role in Pittsburgh. But things reached a boiling point when running back Najee Harris spoke to the media after the Week 11 loss.
“You could do two things,” he said. “You could look at the record and say, ‘OK, we’re still good right now.’ Or we could look at the record and be like, ‘If we keep playing this type of football, how long is that s— going to last?’ I look at it like, ‘How long that s— going to last?’ Y’all could look at it like it’s a good record, but I mean it’s the NFL. Winning how we did, it’s not going to get us nowhere.”
The Steelers -29 point differential is almost unheard of for a team that currently sports a 6-4 record and occupies the final wildcard spot. But it was apparent to all parties that if Pittsburgh wanted to make a legitimate playoff push, that change needed to happen immediately, and not get pushed back into the offseason.
Steelers QB coach Mike Sullivan and RB coach Eddie Faulkner will share coordinator duties for the time being. Faulkner is expected to take over as interim OC, while Sullivan will handle play-calling duties in Week 12.
The Steelers next travel to Cincinnati to take on the Joe Burrow-less Bengals in another important divisional showdown on Sunday November 26th.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: SteelCityHobbies. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.