With Mike McCarthy as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, failures from offenses of the past could alter course for the better. McCarthy is an offensive-minded coach, and it seems like he could lead the team into new territory of success that they haven't seen consistently enough of since 2007.
Researching offenses from Steelers history from the past 19 years, and you realize a troubling trend.
The level of inconsistency that has plagued the offense is something the team could never get away from. They have gone through five offensive coordinators since 2007, and some are bigger names than others. When it comes down to it, some offensive coordinators found more success than others. A couple of hires turned out to produce strong seasons, while others were complete duds.
Pittsburgh Steelers history points to their offensive coordinators for playoff failures
Starting off the list hot here with a bold take. Todd Haley is the best offensive coordinator the Steelers have employed in nearly two decades. The Pittsburgh product wasn't without his flaws, and a lack of postseason success and a rift between him and Ben Roethlisberger eventually led to his demise.
Haley was still the best offensive coordinator during a prime offensive era for the Steelers.
It was the time of "The Killer B's" offense that was highlighted by Roethlisberger, Le'Veon Bell, and Antonio Brown. Haley was the offensive coordinator for six seasons in Pittsburgh, and statistically speaking, four of those campaigns created a deadly attack. Having Haley at the top of this list just shows how poorly Mike Tomlin hired offensive coordinators as a whole during his tenure.
Many probably assume Bruce Arians would have been the top offensive coordinator on this list, but he just lost out to Todd Haley. Yes, he won a Super Bowl as the offensive playcaller in Pittsburgh, but overall, his offenses didn't rank incredibly high during his tenure. Another issue with Arians is how things ended; it was a bitter divorce between him and the Steelers, with Tomlin being the catalyst.
At the end of the day, most will look back at Arians' tenure as the offensive coordinator of Pittsburgh wondering what could've been.
He won a championship and had two fantastic seasons out of his four on the job. His time after Pittsburgh is where his career took off. He became a fantastic story and eventually won a Super Bowl as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
It was a bold call at the time for Mike Tomlin to let Todd Haley go and replace him with Randy Fitchner to make Roethlisberger happy. The Steelers offense actually graded out pretty solidly when comparing it to prior offenses. No, Fitchner wasn't a great offensive coordinator, but the 2018 season saw him call a strong game. After his first year, though, things started to spiral downward.
When it comes down to it, Fichtner was never overly qualified to be an offensive coordinator in the NFL. He wasn't a disaster compared to other offensive playcallers the Steelers have had in recent memory, but compared to Arians and Haley, he wasn't good either. You could also chalk up some of Fitchner's shortcomings due to the changing offensive talent that he had to work with.
You can say a lot of bad things during Arthur Smith's era as the Steelers' offensive coordinator, but it wasn't their worst. No, he wasn't anything spectacular; in fact, he was one of the lesser play callers in Pittsburgh during the past 19 years. That being said, Smith found ways of bringing a level of professionalism to the offensive attack that had been missing for a few years prior to his arrival.
His two seasons in Pittsburgh were not great, but they did bring some sense of normalcy to an offense that struggled under Matt Canada. Arthur Smith also had to deal with a revolving door of veteran quarterbacks during his tenure, led by Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and Justin Fields. For the most part, it was a forgettable stop for Smith's career.
By no surprise, Matt Canada comes dead last in the rankings of recent offensive coordinators for the Steelers.
His time in that role was toxic, and it led to loud chants during gamedays where fans would demand the club to fire him. He came off as a coach who thought he knew everything when he actually knew little. His poorly run offenses led to easy days at the office for opposing defenses.
When it is all said and done, Matt Canada might be one of the worst hirings in Steelers history. Fans certainly were annoyed by his decisions on a routine basis, and it forced the club into a rather numb offense. You could say that Canada didn't have much talent to work with, but when your own players make comments against your schematics, then his failure as an offensive coordinator only inflates.
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