Steelers Matt Canada still has a job and troubling questions now linger

There is no shortage of Steelers fans and critics that want to see Matt Canada fired. Then black Monday came, and the coach firings began.  

Yet when Monday ended, Matt Canada had not been terminated as of yet, much to the chagrin of unhappy Steelers fans that hoped to see him go. Without being a seer and not having tea leaves to read, it’s hard to say what ultimate fate will befall him before the start.

Still, if one was to look at the circumstantial evidence gathering up, it might not be a stretch to come to a conclusion that those wanting him to be shown the exit may still be in for a long wait. A recent Twitter post seemed to express a similar sentiment.

What leads us to this conclusion? First is that after the game, Mike Tomlin could make no commitments regarding Canada’s future. In typical Tomlin fashion, he took a strict non-committal attitude as he typically does in matters of this sort. Hence, leading one to suspect that despite 90% of Steelers Nation’s views, Mike Tomlin may not wish to sever ties with Matt Canada.

Another report posted online this week also seems to indicate that, unlike other teams in the NFL, the Steelers seem hesitant to fire coaches mid-contract. If you look at Steelers history, most assistant coaches usually hit the road once their contract hits the road once their contract expires. Only defensive coordinator Tim Lewis was fired while under contract in 2003.

Steelers Harris comes to Canada’s Defense

Interestingly when everyone seemed to be against Canada, someone came to his aid despite those in the Pittsburgh media who have continuously harped on why the Steelers should have severed ties with Matt Canada yesterday.

The person coming to his aid seemed a most unlikely candidate. Najee Harris came out as a strong defendant of Matt Canada. According to Harris, all of the problems those of us on the outside looking in were never really there. Makes one wonder if Najee saw the same games we all watched, given he played in them.   As Najee put it:

"All that play-calling stuff, I think is a coverup for just the lack of Stuff that we were doing on the field as players. I never bought into none of that…Cause I know at the end of the day we’re the ones who gotta make the plays.”"

Well, to one degree, his correct they need to make the plays and early in the season, he had a rough time until the bye week. However, when the play calls are predictable and not well designed to move the ball down the field, allowing opposing defenses to sniff the plays out. When numerous plays called have a low success probability, it doesn’t matter how good your players are.

Steelers  offensive stats under Canada

While Harris sticking up for his coach has an admirable trait. Look at the offensive statistics. Steelers averaged 18.11 points per game, ranking 26th in the NFL. Yards per play over the 2022 Season? 4.9 yards per play, ranking them 27th overall.

The Steelers success in the red is another embarrassing stat. The Steelers scored on 51.92 percent of their trips into the red zone. Giving them a rank of 23rd overall in the NFL. Adding to that that they had only 1.7 touchdowns a game, a dismal 28th in NFL rankings. Nothing overly impressive.

The bottom line is that you can sugarcoat it any way you want, but the stats don’t lie. Perhaps as Najee frames it, they did not make all the plays needed; the Steelers choice of plays never helped. Plus, his explanation still does not explain why Diontae Johnson could never find the endzone.

However, it’s not like the Steelers do not have talent. It’s not like Pat Freiermuth didn’t make big plays in the waning minutes of games. Najee came up big against the Ravens. If they could do it in the fourth quarter, why did they have such a difficult time between quarters 1-3?

Well, perhaps the answer to that is a bit more troubling

Did Steelers Mike Tomlin intervene in play calling?

Now another story emerged which, if true, may make fans scratch their head. According to Jeff Hathhorn, the Steelers insider for 93.7 The Fan when he joined the PM Team with Poni and Mueller had a stunning revelation.

It’s Mike Tomlin who wanted this offense to be vanilla….Just not turn it over, that’s his game plan. Be conservative and let the defense win the game. That’s not Canada’s game plan. It’s the game plan he was told to create. Ultimately it’s on Tomlin. They just didn’t want to take any chances”

If true, this leads to some questions. Ok, perhaps it worked going down the stretch, but simply entrusting games to your defense is risky. As we saw against Philadelphia and the Bills. The first question that leads to is that if Tomlin had to dumb down the offense for his players, then there is still a problem with the offensive coordinator.

Tomlin supposedly eliminated many of the RPOs he felt were not being properly executed. By Najee’s own admission, that’s perhaps on the players. And so shouldn’t the coaching staff be looking for players that can run the offensive coordinators’ playbook?

That said, players are professionals and should be able to work within the confines of any offensive coordinator. If the head coach has to intervene and tell the coordinator what to run, then why is that person still employed?

If the report is true, it leads to some troubling issues. First is that Tomlin seems to have this tendency to control everything. So why have assistant coaches at all? Secondly, if Tomlin had to dumb down the offense, does that not still indicate a problem with the offensive coordinator? Third, if Tomlin had to dictate what type of offense to run, why does he go to such great lengths to protect Matt Canada?

As much as many of you hate the Tomlin bashing. We all know 16 non-losing seasons and only one championship title is exceedingly amazing. Dream on. Bill Belichek had 19 consecutive non-losing seasons, six titles in nine Superbowl appearances, and a 30-11 playoff record. In Tomlin’s 16 seasons, he goes one in one in title games and lost four wild card appearances and an 8-9 overall playoff record. In that context not overly impressive.

The bottom line is that it appears those that want Canada gone may have to wait one more year, and it means another year of an indecisive head coach that can not pull the trigger when needed. Yet you all have yourselves fooled into thinking a title is just around the bend in 2023.