It’s rare that a team wins a game and then gets scorned by the national media, but that’s been the case with the Pittsburgh Steelers today. After they beat the Browns 26-22 on Monday Night Football, Colin Cowherd went on a near-minute rant about the Steelers and their commitment to loyalty, particularly when it comes to offensive coordinator Matt Canada, on The Herd today.
“Score two defensive touchdowns in a win. That might have been an awesome headline in the ‘70s and ‘80s and maybe the ‘90s. It isn’t an awesome headline today,” Cowherd said. “Loyalty is one of those words that we view almost empirically as positive, always good. Sometimes you have to move off plans. Sometimes you have to move off people, like Matt Canada, the offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s holding the franchise back. But loyalty is so integrated into Pittsburgh’s DNA.”
I think scoring two defensive touchdowns in a win is a pretty awesome thing to do no matter if it’s 1940 or 2023, but his point about loyalty is valid. The Steelers have had three head coaches since 1969, and they’ve been lucky that all three have been really good coaches. But that doesn’t mean the Steelers need to hold onto their coordinators the way they have, when it’s clear that they’re incapable of getting the job done.
The team’s organizational philosophy recently has been not to fire coaches, and instead wait until their contracts run out before replacing them. It does show loyalty, but like Cowherd said, sometimes there’s a case to be made for being too loyal.
“Pittsburgh’s an excellent organization. But they’re starting to become paralyzed, so into their brand, so into loyalty. This offense stinks,” he said. “Loyalty to them is like a credit card with no limit. But deep down, they have nothing but bills. There’s a massive debt.”
And the offense doesn’t stink because of a lack of talent. Execution has been an issue, but it’s still generally a young group. A few mistakes here and there can be excused. But the fact that Pickett has regressed so far in Year Two through two games, when one of the main selling points for keeping Canada was to maintain Pickett’s comfort level, is cause for concern.
We’re in Year Three of Canada running the offense now. Things haven’t gotten better. It was a disaster last year, and if Canada didn’t have another year on his contract, he might have been gone. But the Steelers held onto him, trying to buoy their young quarterback and see if he could grow with another year in the offense. It hasn’t happened.
Not only has Pickett regressed, but we’re seeing the same general issues we’ve seen over the past few years. The run game can’t get going. The offensive line has struggled. They get off to slow starts week after week. At this point, there really aren’t any excuses. The offense has to play better, and Canada has to improve his play calling. With his contract due up after the season, he’s going to be gone if the offense doesn’t show marked improvement.
Everything that we thought would improve and be better thanks to additions made this offseason and what we saw in the preseason haven’t been, and in a lot of cases, the offense has been worse. The run game got going in the second half last year, but so far this season, it’s been terrible. The Steelers had 55 yards on 21 carries last night. That’s bad. The offensive line has struggled, particularly in run blocking but in pass blocking as well. It’s been ugly to watch, and Canada’s clock is running out of time. The loyalty should be coming to an end if the offense can’t improve and do so in short order.
