The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2020 season is now in the books, and it ended in spectacular fashion—though the wrong kind of spectacular—in a dismal postseason defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Browns, sending them into an early offseason mode after going 12-4 in the regular season and winning the AFC North for the first time in three years.
After setting a franchise record by opening the year on an 11-game winning streak, they followed that up by losing three games in a row, going 1-4 in the final five games, with only a 17-point comeback staving off a five-game slide. But all the issues they had in the regular season showed up in the postseason that resulted in their early exit.
The only thing facing them now as they head into 2021 is more questions, and right now, they lack answers. What will Ben Roethlisberger do, and what will they do with him? What will the salary cap look like? How many free agents are they going to lose? Who could they possibly afford to retain? Who might they part ways with—not just on the roster, but also on the coaching staff?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Is Matt Canada still the favorite to be the Steelers’ next offensive coordinator?
It seems like it was a while ago already that we were told that the Steelers naming Matt Canada their next offensive coordinator was all but a done deal after serving one season as their quarterbacks coach. A number of beat writers talked as though it was a foregone conclusion, but have since seemingly walked away from that.
The Steelers have been connected with a couple of other names as possible offensive coordinator candidates, namely Hue Jackson and Pep Hamilton, at least among those who are known. Both are more experienced at the NFL level, to state the obvious.
Canada, of course, had an interview earlier this offseason for a vacant coordinator position. He seems like somebody who will be on that circuit until he actually gets the promotion, if it doesn’t happen this year, whether that’s with Pittsburgh or somewhere else.
While new to the NFL, Canada is a very experienced coach who spent many years at the college level, often wielding the dual role of quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. He is an individual whom some NFL teams consulted over the years, particularly in 2019 while he was out of coaching, to give them ideas about how the college game was evolving. At some point, somebody will hire him to run their offense. It could be this year. Is it likely to be the Steelers?
