4 reasons Steelers are making a mistake keeping Matt Canada
By Tommy Jaggi
Matt Canada is here to stay as offensive coordinator for the 2023 season, but here are the biggest reasons why the Pittsburgh Steelers are making a mistake.
I’m not going to start to pretend that the Pittsburgh Steelers offense doesn’t have issues outside of Matt Canada. Though their offensive line improved, they still have a less-than-spectacular unit up front with a pair of offensive tackles that probably need to be replaced. Their receiving corps was also pretty unspectacular outside of rookie George Pickens this year, as Diontae Johnson really struggled. However, make no mistake: Canada is the biggest issue with this offense.
Week after week during the 2022 season, I’ve rewatched the games and broken down the film. The more I watch, the harder it becomes to defend Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator. Sadly, there’s no reason to believe it will get much better either. Here are the four biggest reasons why the Steelers are making a colossal mistake keeping Matt Canada in 2023.
4. Steelers two-year sample with Matt Canada has been poor
You don’t have to look very far to figure out how things have gone on offense for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the past two years. In 2021 with Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback, Canada’s offense scored 20.2 points per game in his first season as offensive coordinator.
This year, that number dipped down to just 18.1 points per game, per ESPN stats. Though things seemed to get better since the bye week, Pittsburgh also had one of the easiest stretches of games in the second half of the year. The biggest improvements came on defense; not from Canada’s offense.
When you consider that the Steelers fired Randy Fichtner after the team scored 26.6 points per game in 2020, it’s hard to believe that things could have gone downhill so fast. Matt Canada’s two-year sample has been very poor.