Improvement from Kenny Pickett must start with a coordinator change

The Pittsburgh Steelers can’t continue down this road any longer. Kenny Pickett won’t start seeing improvement until there’s a new OC in town.

We are now two days removed from the Pittsburgh Steelers abysmal loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. If they were going to make a change at offensive coordinator, we believe they would have announced that by now. Until they do, there just isn’t much reason to believe things will start getting any better for rookie quarterback, Kenny Pickett.

In the five games he has suited up for this season, the team has averaged a dismal 13.2 points per contest and is dead last in the league in most offensive categories. This isn’t far off from what we have seen from the offense as a hole this season. Whether Mitch Trubisky or Kenny Pickett is at the helm, Pittsburgh’s offense is indisputably the worst in the league. Here’s how they rank entering their Week 9 bye, according to Team Rankings:

This utter lack of offensive competence is completely inexcusable. Obviously, Pickett deserves his fair share of the blame. It’s hard not to point the finger at the rookie at times when you have 8 interceptions in five NFL appearances to go with just 2 passing touchdowns. Pickett is also dead last in the league among qualifying passers in yards per attempt and adjusted yards per attempt — two stats that typically have a direct correlation to the quality of quarterback play.

It’s clear that Pickett must show improvement. Sadly, we might not see much change (if any) until offensive coordinator, Matt Canada, is removed from the picture.

Steelers must part with Matt Canada immediately

I don’t care if we are in the middle of the season or not; I don’t even care what the alternatives are. The Pittsburgh Steelers must fire Matt Canada immediately unless they want to witness their rookie quarterback struggle like this for the rest of the season.

Before the Steelers made the switch at quarterback from Trubisky to Pickett, I said that I was very worried Canada’s offense will ruin him. So far, it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t. Matt Canada’s play design doesn’t allow any room for creativity or for receivers to help out their quarterbacks with essential yards after the catch.

Instead, most of his plays are designed to go to the sidelines for minimal gains, and there typically aren’t more than two viable reads on any given play. His scripted speed outs and play-action rollouts have a maximum potential of just 5 or 6 yards and he lives to get into third and manageable situations.

This simply cannot go on. Even if there isn’t a respectable candidate to replace Canada long-term, the team should go with an interim OC for the rest of this season. This might come in the form of quarterback coach, Mike Sullivan.

The Steelers have two weeks to prepare for their next game against the New Orleans Saints. This obviously isn’t a lot of time to get comfortable with a new offensive coordinator if they were to make a change, but I just don’t see how things could get much worse anyway. If it were up to me, Pittsburgh would have parted ways with Matt Canada weeks ago.