Matt Canada is excited with his options for the Steelers offense in 2022

One thing is inevitable for the Steelers their offense will operate much differently in 2022 than it did with Big Ben at the helm.

Even though Matt Canada took over as offensive coordinator in 2021, his creative style was hampered to a certain degree with Big Ben at quarterback. In addition to the jet sweeps, he incorporates a certain part of his offense playbook, including running the play action and the quarterback having a certain amount of mobility.

Everyone knew, though, and Roethlisberger made it clear he was never comfortable running the play action. While Ben still had mobility, he never was a running quarterback, and what mobility he still had paled to his mobility as a rookie when he shrugged off defenders extending the life of a play.

As a result, Matt Canada’s vision for the offense could not come to fruition as long as Big Ben ran it. With Ben’s retirement, the gloves are off, so to speak. Matt Canada has two new quarterbacks to work with this year.

Which quarterback runs Canada’s offense will be up in the air until pre-season camp rolls around but still, both should be capable of running it the way Canada would like. Hence the quarterback situation leads to another reason causing much excitement for Matt Canada.

In addition to more mobile quarterbacks, he has a lot of new options to explore with the wide receivers. Knowing Ben was leaving put Canada in the position where he could start looking at additional opportunities for Chase Claypool.

There is chatter now that Canada is considering moving Claypool to the slot position that JuJu Smith-Schuster used to occupy. The underlying thought here is that Claypool will inherit the position as that rookie

Aside from who plays the slot, Canada loves the versatility of the receiving corps in 2022. Rest assured, he will experiment with running everyone in the slot while also looking at other options to incorporate the receivers into the run game.

Matt Canada has more to be excited about, in addition to the Pickens draft pick, as the Steelers gave him another potential versatile weapon in Calvin Austin III. There was also the free-agent signing of Gunner Olszewski. With the options Matt Canada now has, it will be interesting to see how his vision of the Steelers compares to 2021. He will have lots of opportunities to experiment.

Bear in mind, though, while Matt Canada might be excited, Canada did have his critics in 2021. Some wanted his head to roll after the 2021 season ended disappointingly. Ron Cook from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is one of those who question Canada’s ability to run the Steelers offense as its offensive coordinator. He points out

"I keep hearing Roethlisberger sabotaged Canada’s offense last season, that Roethlisberger’s lack of mobility kept Canada from running the offense he likes. I’m Not sure I’m totally buying it. What I saw last season was the offense being at it’s best in the second halves when Roethlisberger basically took over play calling."

He did go further in criticizing Canada, but the point is, whatever failures Matt Canada had in 2021, he is free to run his unhinged offense in 2022. While it seems the Steelers heavily invested in its offense instead of a more defensive-heavy draft if his offense fails in 2022, there will be no scapegoating Ben Roethlisberger again.

Certainly, though, we are, as Steelers fans entering a new era of Steelers football after 18 seasons, and there will be much anticipation to see what Canada puts together in his playbook and how well they perform as a unit. While we have to wait and see how the season unfolds, it could either end in the culmination of another championship or Tomlin’s first losing season; let’s hope it’s the latter.