Pittsburgh fans are hoping to see very different results this year. Fortunately, Matt Canada already has his fingerprints all over the offense at Steelers training camp.
After the cringeworthy collapse of Pittsburgh’s offense late in the 2020 season, fans were hoping to see signs of life by this team during the first Steelers training camp practice open to the public at Heinz Field. Let’s just say that Matt Canada delivered.
Though I’m sure the new offensive coordinator is going to keep a few tricks tucked up his sleeve for a rainy day, his fingerprints are clearly all over Pittsburgh’s offense early. This is a good thing.
During Pittsburgh’s first public training camp practice on July 28th, Canada was implementing ‘motion’ on nearly every play during 11-on-11s – both pre-snap and at-snap. This seemed to confuse the defense at times as one player would run a jet-sweep across the face of the quarterback while Najee Harris was used frequently in the play-action game.
Just like we saw with Canada’s offense during his time at Maryland, the Steelers used a lot of two-back sets. With the first-team offense, it was typically Harris and speedster Anthony McFarland on the field at the same time. McFarland would often be split out wide and was brought in motion while Harris was in the backfield.
Why Canada’s offense will work for Steelers in 2021
The biggest problem with Pittsburgh’s offense last year is that it was quite literally the most predictable in the league, based on the formations they ran (yes, this is something that can actually be measured by snap counts).
According to Sharp Football Stats, the Steelers were first in run percentage (85%) and last in pass percentage (15%) while under center. They were also incredibly unbalanced with 83% of their total snaps coming from shotgun formation:
#Steelers snap rates from 2016-2020.
— Tommy Jaggi (@TommyJaggi) July 27, 2021
Pittsburgh has gotten progressively more predictable over the years - so much so that you can guess with good accuracy before the play if it's going to be a run or pass based on whether Ben is under center or in shotgun. This needs to change. pic.twitter.com/B9RMpKi32y
You can expect these numbers to change in 2021. Though Ben Roethlisberger loves operating out of the shotgun (and he will likely do so often this season), I predict a much more even split this year.
Where Pittsburgh should be the most improved is using play-action. The Steelers ran an astonishingly low 48 play-action passes with Roethlisberger last season. In comparison, top NFL quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen each had at least 140 attempts from play-action last year.
In 2020, Pittsburgh continually tipped the opposing defense off to what they were doing based on formation, and they can’t afford to be so predictable this season. With all of Matt Canada’s play-action and pre-snap motion he is running early in Steelers training camp, I have hope that this offense is going to be much more creative in 2021.