The Matt Canada era in Pittsburgh, at long last, is over.
The Steelers fired their offensive coordinator this morning, with head coach Mike Tomlin adding in a brief statement “I appreciate Matt’s hard work and dedication, and I wish him the best moving forward.”
Canada, in his third year as the offensive coordinator for the Steelers, failed to establish a successful NFL offense since he took the job starting in thee 2021 season.
Under Canada, Pittsburgh’s offense was routinely one of the worst in the NFL, and that came despite multiple quarterbacks playing in his system.
In 2021, with Ben Roethlisberger in his final year, Canada’s offense ranked 21st in the league in points, and 23rd in yards. Little did Steelers fans know, that would be the best it ever got.
There were calls to fire Canada even after that season, but the thought process from the Steelers was to give Canada a newer, younger quarterback, and see what happened then.
Last season, with a combo of Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett at the helm, the offense fell in the rankings. They finished 26th in points and 23rd in yards.
And coming into this season, they are sitting at 28th in the league in yards (and points), and are currently averaging 283.6 yards per game here in 2023.
The Steelers never had a 400-yard day of offense in Matt Canada’s schemes. The closest they ever got was 391 yards, which came all the way back October 10, 2021, when they beat the Denver Broncos 27-19 at home.
Crazily enough, the second highest yardage total they put up under Matt Canada actually came with Mason Rudolph at QB. With Ben out on the Covid list, Rudolph was forced to start on November 14, 2021, where the Steelers put up 387 yards in a 16-16 tie with the Detroit Lions.
The Steelers also never scored more than 30 points in a win under Canada. They have only scored 30+ twice in the last three years. Pittsburgh lost 41-37 to the LA Chargers back on November 21, 2021, and they lost 37-30 to the Cincinnati Bengals on November 20, 2022.
This season, the highest total the Steelers have scored is 26, in Week 2, but that comes with a major asterisk. The Steelers scored two defensive touchdowns in that game, which carried them to victory.
The real total, based solely on offensive scoring, is 24. They scored that when they beat the Rams in LA earlier this year.
Canada’s offense had been losing support left and right, and he was one of the most hated people in this city as his tenure went along. Even after ditching the norm and calling plays from the sideline instead of up in the booth, the offense saw minimal progress at best.
Several players seemed to have been over with Canada as well. Kenny Pickett’s interaction with Canada on the bench in Sunday’s loss to Cleveland was rather telling.
This was probably the only thing that could have saved the city after the Steelers’ ugly 13-10 loss to Cleveland.
(Featured photo by Gene J. Puskar/AP)
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