One simple reason Steelers should retain Randy Fichtner

The Steelers should not make a change at Offensive Coordinator despite results from the 2020 regular season

Look, I realize there are two sides of the fence on the issue of whether or not the Steelers need to make a change at Offensive Coordinator.  Randy Fichtner, our OC for the past three seasons, did some nice things and did some not so nice things with the offense during the 2020 regular season.

According to ESPN.com, our offense finished 25th in total offense, meaning the Steelers ranked 25th in average yards per game.  That’s not good, let’s just call that what it is.  To delve further into the rankings, we finished 15th in average passing yards per game, but dead last in average rushing yards per game.

The most alarming result was the feckless running game.  If you watched any games during the regular season, you no doubt noticed that in some games, we were able to run the ball seemingly at will; in other games, it was a struggle to get a yard.  Was the inconsistency in the running game on Fichtner or was it on a combination of injuries, poor execution, or something else altogether?

The Steelers would be well served by keeping Fichtner in his current role

I don’t think it really matters what the issues were.  I think all that matters is we keep Fichtner in his current role for this one simple reason:  continuity.  For a team that has had three head coaches since 1969, continuity is of paramount importance.

That is not to say that we don’t need to make changes on the offensive side of the ball to get back to being a team that can ‘salt away’ a victory by running the ball and chewing up the clock when the circumstances dictate that course of action.

What I don’t think we need to do is make ‘wholesale’ changes that would include finding a new Offensive Coordinator.  We all remember the Todd Haley experiment.  I remember the one year Ray Sherman experiment that did not go so well.  The fact that Ben Roethlisberger, our future Hall of Fame QB, has been around Fichtner in some form or fashion since 2007 speaks volumes about the need to maintain the ‘status quo’.

Look, I’m not happy about the performance of the offense during the 2020 regular season any more than you are, but if we make a change at OC and ‘Big Ben’ is not particularly happy with that change, it would be tantamount to cutting off our collective nose to spite our collective face.