Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Matt Canada’s offense for the Pittsburgh Steelers is incredibly predictable.
Through Canada’s 38 games as the offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers, not much has changed at all. They are still the same hapless, inefficient, incompetent offensive attack that consistently puts them behind the 8-ball and leads to some rather ugly performances.
That was again the case on Sunday inside NRG Stadium against the Houston Texans in Week Four. The Steelers had no real rhyme or reason as to why and what they were trying to accomplish against the Texans, leading to an abysmal offensive performance that generated just 225 yards of total offense — 53 yards at the half — and saw quarterback Kenny Pickett and tight end Pat Freiermuth go down with potential multi-week injuries.
For ESPN’s Kevin Clark, enough is enough when it comes to Canada. Appearing on the latest episode of his podcast “This Is Football” for ESPN, Clark stated that he saw a predictable offense yet again from Canada and sees a guy who calls a play that is successful over and over until it doesn’t work, like he is playing a video game.
“Everybody agrees that it’s a problem, and the people who don’t are the people who are in charge of fixing it,” Clark said, according to audio of the podcast. “Here’s what we saw on Sunday: a predictable offense that runs the same plays over and over. If he has success, he just spams it until it doesn’t work like a Madden player.
“We saw a fourth and short-yardage shotgun start with Kenny Pickett, with no play-action. Texans pin their ears back, hit him hard and he gets hurt. … We saw six points scored against an average Texans team. …Show me some development with Kenny Pickett. Show me anything!”
Along with the disastrous fourth-down play call that was very clearly the most miserable, mind-numbing play call of the Canada tenure, the early interception in the game after Pickett threw deep for Calvin Austin III — again — was another frustrating play call.
In fact, it was the same play call that the Steelers scored on against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week Three. That’s where the “spamming” comments from Clark regarding Canada’s play calling comes into focus. In fact, Clark even cited Steelers Depot’s own Alex Kozora’s numbers that Canada called the same shallow cross concept that features Austin running a post, Freiermuth running a dig and the slot receiver running a drag, 12 times already.
Cornerback Steven Nelson, who picked off the pass intended for Austin deep on the Steelers’ opening drive, stated after the game that the Texans knew what was coming just based on film study when the Steelers are in that sort of look, and based on where they are in the field of play.
Nelson isn’t the first opponent to state that during the Canada tenure, and he won’t be the last.
The Steelers’ offense is so predictable, and it starts with Canada. There is no creativity, no real effort to try and disguise things. Instead, he puts it all on the players to execute, and to do so seemingly with one arm tied behind their backs.
Everyone else can see it and acknowledge it. Yet the decision makers for the Steelers are still seemingly stuck in their ways and being stubborn about it.
Canada is a guy that is — or at least should be — coaching for his job. Heck, we’ve already gotten past that point with the offensive coordinator. Show us something — anything — like Clark stated. And if you can’t, which the sample size is large enough to show us that his offense can’t, it’s time for a change to try and save not only the quarterback that you’ve invested in, but other young offensive pieces as well.
