With three wins in five weeks, capped by a game-winning drive over the Baltimore Ravens that puts them in first place in the AFC North, I’m afraid the Pittsburgh Steelers will not be firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada over the bye week. This is in spite of the fact that the offense scored only 15 points in the game, aided by multiple defensive turnovers and help on special teams.
No, regardless of the exotic locales in which “Fire Canada” chants have emerged, in spite of petitions, not even storming city hall will likely have any effect on his employment status, “at this juncture”, as head coach Mike Tomlin said last Tuesday.
Make no mistake, the Steelers still retain one of the worst offenses in the league, putting up a whopping 63 points of their own over a five-week period. They have yet to win by more than one score, which is no surprise given that they haven’t scored more than 23 points in any one game on their own, aided by three interceptions.
But I think we all knew deep down that nothing was going to happen, at least if things went reasonably well (e.g. the Steelers won without the offense actively helping their opponents score). We had numerous reporters speculate that they felt that something might happen if things didn’t go well, but there was nothing of any substance to stand on.
Why? I don’t have a good explanation. The Steelers obviously believe in Canada a lot more than everybody else in the world does. While not directly referencing him, I couldn’t help but notice comments by the likes of QB Kenny Pickett and others talking about how the locker room was too strong for the media to pull them apart from each other.
As long as they continue to squeak by and keep their blowouts to approximately once every four weeks, I have full confidence that the Steelers will see Canada through to the end of the season. Maybe it’s loyalty and a basic sense of respect for the person and the job. Maybe they actually think he’s not that bad and the personnel just isn’t getting the job done, by and large.
Whatever the reason is, I think yesterday’s win over the Baltimore Ravens and the improved efforts in the second half offered him a reprieve—and that’s only assuming that there was ever a point at which a reprieve might have been needed.
Quite frankly, barring utter disaster, I doubt that there was. Maybe if the Steelers had a later bye week and they had a larger sample size of the futility of his unit, they might have been more willing to make a change. With an early bye, however, instead they will look at it as a means of getting the offense on track under his system.
And who knows? Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe I’ll beat Calvin Austin III in a foot race. I was pretty fast in third grade. When I was running Canada’s offense. I kid, of course. We had audibles.
