Steelers offense is already looking more creative at OTAs under Matt Canada

The Steelers hope to be far less predictable in 2021. Here’s why we are already getting a glimpse of how they will look under Matt Canada.

The Steelers offense didn’t start the 2020 season half bad. As a matter of fact, they were quite good early in the year. Through the first five games of the season, Pittsburgh was averaging 31.2 points per game while rushing for over 136 yards per contest.

Unfortunately,, this is a number they could not maintain throughout the season. By the end of the year, the Steelers were averaging 19.6 points per contest over their final 6 games and were dead last in the league in rushing during that span.

Part of the problem was that any offensive innovation the Steelers had in 2020 was removed by the end of the season. Ben Roethlisberger had voiced to the media last year that he does not love to run play-action, pre-snap motion, or anything else that requires him to turn his back to the defense. While I admit that it would have been hard to trust Pittsburgh’s offensive line to hold up on any given play last year, the offense clearly suffered when Matt Canada’s hand was removed from it.

What will the Steelers offense look like in 2021?

Though we are only in OTAs, we are already starting to get a picture of how Pittsburgh’s offense is going to look under the new offensive coordinator, Matt Canada. The former quarterback coach clearly had some influence on the offense early last season, as Randy Fichtner was willing to incorporate his pre-snap motion into the game plan. However, it’s looking like we can expect much more of that in 2021.

During OTAs this year, Steelers offense can be seen practicing plenty of pre-snap motion. In one particular drill, receivers go in motion before the snap and are given Canada’s patented pop pass as soon as the ball is snapped (it’s essentially a handoff).

Running pre-snap motion is almost essential in today’s NFL. It keeps the defense on its heels and makes it much harder to predict what the offense might do. Even if the Steelers only give the ball to the receiver 5-10 percent of the time he crosses the face of the quarterback, it’s enough to freeze the defense for just a moment. When they do choose to do the pop pass to the receiver, it has the potential for some huge yardage.

This is just one drill of many we expect Matt Canada’s offense to be practicing on the regular. If you are to go back and watch some of his offenses from his days of coaching at the collegiate level, you would see much of the same.

We aren’t going to know exactly how Pittsburgh’s new offensive playbook is going to look until we get into the 2021 season, but Matt Canada is clearly looking for ways to make the Steelers offense more creative and less predictable this year. I have a feeling that it is going to pay off.