Steelers OC and DC should be thankful for their jobs this Thanksgiving

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive and defensive coordinators should be thankful for one thing this Thanksgiving

The Steelers will enter Week 12 at just 3-7. It is safe to say that I am somewhat surprised at how poorly the Steelers team has performed. Coming into the season I had thought that even with either Mitch Trubisky or Kenny Pickett at the helm I couldn’t imagine the Steelers would have such a significant falloff from making the playoffs a year ago.

After all, the offensive line was supposed to be at least somewhat improved. The Steelers had added Myles Jack to improve the linebacker group and replaced Stephon Tuitt(who didn’t play a down of football last season) with Larry Ogunjobi which should’ve bolstered the defensive line.

Yet here we are, more than halfway through the season with nearly a 0% chance of even being in the hunt for a wildcard. Both the offense and defense have significantly underperformed and as a result, I believe both Teryl Austin and Matt Canada should be thankful for still having their coordinator jobs this Thanksgiving.

The defense has been a bigger disappointment than the offense

While I’ll be the first to say the defense is still technically the strength of this team. The fact that the defensive roster has improved on paper in terms of talent while performing this much worse than last season is a shock.

I knew the defense would look different going from Keith Butler to Teryl Austin I could not have imagined it playing this much worse. It’s not a talent issue. The fact of the matter is the defensive game plans coming into games have been terrible, aside from the wins against the Saints and Buccaneers. Moreso, the fact that the defense has been unable to make adjustments at halftime is even worse.

Teryl Austin is out of his depth as a defensive coordinator. He was hardly average as a defensive backs coach. Minkah Fitzpatrick is a special player, Terrell Edmunds is solid, and Cam Sutton is the only cornerback aside from Mike Hilton that the Steelers have been able to develop in the last decade. This should’ve given the powers that be at least some inkling of an idea of how unfit Austin would be for this job. The defensive backfield improvement had much less to do with Teryl Austin and more to do with the savvy move to trade for Minkah back in 2019.

Tomlin also should’ve never relinquished the defensive playcalling duties as he had done a great job of it last season. The Steelers’ defense lost the game against the Bengals in Week 11. I get the offense disappeared in the second half but coming into this season the expectation has been that if the Steelers can score 30 points, they should win the game.

Matt Canada should’ve been fired at the bye week

While I understand the trepidation that comes with switching offensive coordinators midseason with a rookie quarterback starting, Canada is terrible. I had hopes that his offense would work this season with a quarterback who would fit his scheme. However, Canada’s offense has been largely ineffective. I have come to Canada’s defense on multiple occasions pointing to the poor offensive line play. I mean at one point in Week 11 the Bengals had a pass rusher coming untouched at Kenny Pickett and Trey Hendrickson still beat Dan Moore and got to Pickett before the free rusher did.

However, at some point, the offensive coordinator has to realize that his scheme won’t work with this current roster. Furthermore, Canada at this point should be formulating gameplans to help the offensive line. Two tight-end sets should be a staple of this offense right now. Using Gentry and Freiermuth in the passing game while chipping edge rushers should be the standard at this point.

Slants, crossing patterns, and drag routes should be a staple as well. Pass catchers should be crossing the middle of the field on every play so Pickett has options to get rid of the ball quickly while bringing pass catchers across his field of vision which in theory should make the reads somewhat easier.

Canada’s failure to adjust his game plan to cover up the Steelers’ biggest weakness, the offensive line, is just inexcusable. It is safe to say no one was expecting a lot from the offense this season as it is the first year without Big Ben and the offensive line is in the middle of a rebuild. However, the offense being this much of a disappointment even when expectations were low makes the thought of Canada as the offensive coordinator next year improbable.