Fan replacements for Steelers offensive coordinator include Roethlisberger

If anything else, Steelers fans near and far all appear united in their calling to fire Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada.

Yet supposing the Steelers fired their offensive coordinator at some point this season, there seem to be varying opinions about who his replacement would be. Some ideas range from an in-house promotion to bringing back former offensive coordinators or coaxing retired players to come back as a coach.

Just search Twitter with #mattcanada, and there are tons of posts wondering why he still has a job in the NFL, or they use stats to show why his play calling is so horrible. So fans near and far agree he should go. Yet, with all the Twitter posts calling for the Steelers to axe him, few give thoughts on potential replacements

. Since the Steelers have no plans to get rid of him, there is no official shortlist of potential candidates. It still has not stopped a few from giving their input on possible replacements should the Steelers make that decision.

Steelers quarterback coach Mike Sullivan

Regarding potential replacements, it’s perhaps not the worst idea out there. For the sake of argument, let’s say they did fire Matt Canada at some point this season it’s not like they have the option to do an extensive search for a coordinator. Typically in mid-season, replace the person fired with an in-house interim option.

Would he make a good offensive coordinator? Well, the jury’s out on that. The next question is, then could he be better than Matt Canada? Considering the bar for success is set so low, it’s hard for anyone coming into the position to do much worse than Canada.

Sullivan has coached for 17 years, most of it as a quarterbacks coach. He did have a shot as an offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay in 2012, yet after two seasons, they promptly showed him the exit as they finished 7-9 and 4-12, respectively.

He later served as the Giants offensive coordinator but had no better luck.  While he might do in a pinch for a mid-season replacement, it’s hard to think of him as a long-term replacement. That said, The Steelers offense is slightly better than Tampa Bay’s was in 2012 and 2013; thus, he could have slightly better success.

Steelers could bring back a former offensive coordinator

Perhaps not the most likely option on the board, yet it has merits. The Steelers needed they could bring back a former coordinator as a short-term replacement. While it would make more sense to promote in-house, some have suggested they could give Todd Haley or Randy Fichtner a call to come back for the remainder of the season.

It’s hard to see Tomlin doing that; although the Rooney’s could, it’s not a plausible scenario, but the problem with this scenario is a Mike Tomlin problem. Being a defensive coach, Tomlin has former NFL head coaches on his defensive staff and mediocre coaches on the offensive side of the ball. It’s hard to envision bringing back someone he ran off. That said, they at least have experience with play calling for the Steelers and would have some idea of what Tomlin wants and could perhaps get the offense rolling, whereas it’s falling flat with Canada.

The Steelers could bring back Ben Roethlisberger

Anytime you have a scenario similar to Canada’s, someone is always throwing out something a bit crazy; however, this is potentially a kind of crazy that could pay dividends. One suggestion that came up, and perhaps many have had in the back of their mind, is to bring back Ben Roethlisberger as offensive coordinator, which makes sense in that who else knows the Steelers offense any better?

He has had 18 years of experience calling plays and often improvised or disregarded offensive coordinator input altogether. It’s not hard to fathom trying to sway Ben to come out of retirement. Would he come out of retirement for the offensive coordinator position when he seems content with golfing and catching up on his home life? Probably not, though fans would go nuts if that occurred. It would be interesting to see how well he might fare in the position if he did come out of retirement.

Yet who knows if Canada fails and takes Tomlin with him, perhaps Ben might consider a head coaching vacancy.

The Steelers bizarre options

As long as Canada sticks around, more and more suggestions will get thrown around as fans grow restless. To the point, you will hear the argument that my grandmother could call plays better than Matt Canada. Well, perhaps it’s true or not; we will never know. However, someone threw out the following suggestion:

The suggestion does come out of left field, but it does sum up the feelings of Steelers Nation in their aggravation with Matt Canada at the moment in that they would take just about anyone over whom the Steelers have. All things considered, if push came to shove, why not give Brian Flores a shot? How much worse could he do at this juncture?