When Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mitch Trubisky stated earlier in the week that he is unable to audible on certain plays, it certainly raised some significant eyebrows around the Steelers from the fan base and media’s perspective.
A quarterback of his experience unable to audible on certain plays? What in the world?
Second-year offensive coordinator Matt Canada continues to catch a ton of heat within the city for the offense’s struggles, and taking away the ability to audible out of certain looks into other plays, or even flipping the play from one side to another, is very troubling for the black and gold.
Former Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley, who had a ton of success as the offensive coordinator during his time in Pittsburgh, appeared on 93.7 The Fan’s Cook and Joe Show Wednesday with hosts Joe Starkey and Ron Cook and expressed just how troubling that is to hear from an NFL quarterback of Trubisky’s experience.
“Those aren’t things you want to hear,” Haley said to Starkey and Cook, according to audio via 93.7 The Fan. “There’s alert opposites where you’re running, and then you change the play to the left, there’s pass to run, there’s run to pass. Everybody has these things in their offense. So to hear that, yeah, it’s a little troubling. But again, not being there, not knowing exactly what’s going on, I have a hard time commenting, but not something you want to hear.”
It’s certainly not something anyone wants to hear regarding an NFL offense with a quarterback who has more than 50 career starts. The inability to audible on a given play is something that occurs with high school quarterbacks, not NFL veterans. It’s just another example of the incompetency of the Steelers’ offense right now under Canada, creating more questions than answers moving forward.
Of course, Trubisky is in just his second week as the starting quarterback of the season, and he’s still learning the system overall. But the fact that Canada has seemingly kept him from being able to audible on certain plays is puzzling, and quite honestly, infuriating, putting a handcuff on the players on the field.
How it improves moving forward remains to be seen, but as Haley said, it’s definitely not something anyone wants to hear regarding an NFL team, especially with an offense that is struggling as much as the Steelers are.
