After watching the offense slog through another frustrating performance and quarterback Kenny Pickett continue to regress, the Steelers decided it was finally time to part ways with coordinator Matt Canada while the team was still in a favorable position for the postseason.
The decision came after a meeting with team president Art Rooney II, who grew weary of seeing the Steelers average just 16.1 points in 10 games and watching Pickett, last year’s No. 1 draft pick, struggle the past three games.
Canada reported to the team’s South Side facility early Tuesday, expecting to prepare for Sunday’s game in Cincinnati, when he was told of the decision.
"I did not come to this decision lightly,” coach Mike Tomlin said at his weekly press conference. “It was not easy, but I thought it was necessary,”
Tomlin said quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan, a former offensive coordinator with the New York Giants, will call the plays for the final seven games. He also said running backs coach Eddie Faulkner will be in charge of “organizing the staff” for the game plan.
“That’s a natural thing,” Tomlin said about Sullivan’s expanded role. “He’s done it on two different occasions in the NFL, but also as the quarterback coach he has worked closely with Kenny. Hopefully that aids us, as well.”
Canada was in the final year of a three-year contract. Since he was named to replace Randy Fichtner as coordinator in 2021, the Steelers have averaged 18.6 points and scored 30 or more points just twice in 44 games.
It was a rare move by the Steelers, who traditionally don’t believe in firing coaches during the season. The last time it happened was 1941, when head coach/coordinator Bert Bell, a half-owner of the team, fired himself after losing the first two games of the season.
“This is a result-oriented business and, to be short, the improvements were not rapid enough or consistent enough for us to proceed,” Tomlin said. “You’ve got to score touchdowns in this business. You’ve got to win games in this business. The totality of it has us where we are today.”
The Steelers are 6-4 and, as of now, would make the postseason as the No. 7 seed in the AFC. They also remain in contention for the division title, trailing the first-place Baltimore Ravens by 1.5 games with a favorable schedule ahead of them. Their next five games are against teams who don’t have a winning record, two of which are the Joe Burrow-less Cincinnati Bengals.
The loss to the Browns — the seventh game this season decided by one score — was a reminder they couldn’t afford to keep relying on their defense to keep them in games to hopefully avoid missing the playoffs for the second year in a row.
“I just want to see points,” Tomlin said. “I want to engineer victory more fluidly, and points do that.”
The final straw came after the Steelers lost 13-10 in Cleveland on Sunday, the sixth time this season they failed to score more than one touchdown in a game. But there has been an internal groundswell of frustration the past several weeks about the inefficiency of the offense.
After the game, running back Najee Harris was so disgusted he said, “How long is that [expletive] going to last?” Three weeks earlier, right tackle Chuks Okorafor was benched after demonstratively complaining about the direction of the offense and the plays that were being called.
“There are a lot of layers to it,” Tomlin said. “Our most recent performance is a component of it, but, you know, I just think you know when you’re there, to be blunt.”
Canada’s firing was somewhat unprecedented for the organization. The last time the Steelers fired a coach who was under contract was 2012, when special teams coordinator Al Everest was let go during training camp.
But the Steelers have been mired near the bottom of the league in many statistical offensive categories, ranking 28th in points per game (16.6), 29th in touchdowns (14), 30th in yards per game (280.1) and 31st in passing yards per game (170).
But what likely sealed Canada’s fate was the recent performance of Pickett, who is coming off the lowest passing total of his young career (106 yards) and has thrown just one touchdown in the past five games. Pickett’s completion percentage the past three games (59.2) is lower than his season average (60.5).
Canada was hired by Tomlin to be the team’s quarterback coach in 2020 but was promoted to offensive coordinator when the Steelers did not rehire Fichtner after a season in which they averaged 24.7 points per game.
The Steelers averaged 20.1 points in Canada’s first season in charge of the offense, even scoring 37 points against the Los Angeles Chargers. Since then, however, they have averaged 17.5 points in the subsequent 27 games.
What’s more, their point differential of minus-26 is worst among teams with a winning record. But that has been nothing new in the three seasons under Canada. The Steelers were minus-38 in 2022 and minus-55 in 2021, also the worst among teams with a winning record.
“I often say football is a game, my business is winning,” Tomlin said. “We weren’t winning enough and fluidly enough. And that’s just the reality of it.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac
First Published: November 21, 2023, 1:45 p.m.
Updated: November 21, 2023, 7:50 p.m.
