Former Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark is fed up with his old team. Ahead of the Steelers’ Week Five matchup against the Baltimore Ravens, Clark, an ESPN analyst, made an appearance on Get Up, where he went on an epic rant about the offense under Matt Canada and the Steelers’ failure to make any significant changes after their 30-6 drubbing by the Houston Texans last week.
“You have a quarterback who’s not only injured, who’s not only banged up, but when he’s been 100 percent, he’s nothing to write home about. And unfortunately, his home was right next to where his home is now, because the Pitt Panthers and the Pittsburgh Steelers share a freaking facility,” Clark said. “So at that point, Matt Canada, if he knew that was gonna be his guy, he should’ve been scouting him, he should’ve been figuring out a way, we’re gonna give him an opportunity to push the football down the field and not run the exact same play we ran the first week, or the week before that against the Raiders, just flipping Calvin Austin to the same side. That’s not how football works. It takes creativity, it takes pushing boundaries, it takes saying, ‘Hey man, we suck. We need to do something else.’”
The play that Clark referenced was Pickett’s interception to former Steelers CB Steven Nelson, with Pickett making the same read and throw that worked for him against the Raiders in Week Three. Nelson said he was ready for the play since he had already seen it on tape.
Clark also said he was disappointed that there weren’t any significant changes after Mike Tomlin said there would be changes in his presser after the Texans game. Instead, the biggest change was Pittsburgh having a padded practice on Wednesday. Clark said he thinks it’s going to be more of the same out of the Steelers this weekend.
“When Mike Tomlin said that there would be changes, I thought there would be changes we could see. I will hold my breath. I will hold my water and hope that when they walk into the stadium, it’s different. But I don’t know how different it can be. There’s not another play caller on that team. There’s not another play caller on that staff. And so we’ll probably see the same thing.”
For better or worse, Canada is going to be the Steelers guy. If he gets fired midseason — and I’d put the chances at less than 10% — it would be after this weekend’s game ahead of the bye week. But it would be a move that’s out of character for Tomlin, and I think the Steelers are stuck with Canada for the remainder of the season.
The repetitive play calling is a major issue, as Canada seemingly thinks teams simply won’t adapt. If a play works once, it’s not guaranteed to work again, but with how often he calls the same concepts over and over, it feels like he thinks defenses won’t adjust.
The execution is an issue, too though. As Clark pointed out, even when Pickett is fully healthy, he hasn’t been anything special. Sure, some of that lies on Canada, maybe a majority of it. But Pickett just hasn’t looked good this season. He’s bailed out of clean pockets, struggled with his reads and made some seriously head-scratching throws. Pickett looking like one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the league has been a major issue for Pittsburgh’s offense.
Pickett got hurt against Houston, leaving in the third quarter. He looks like he’ll play against the Ravens on Sunday, and he’s going to try to beat them for the second time in his career. But with how anemic Pittsburgh’s offense has looked, it seems like an incredibly tall task.
Clark doesn’t anticipate anything changing. If the offense looks as bad as it did last week, then that would be a major letdown. It’s not even just the offense, as the defense hasn’t been great. Pittsburgh has struggled in coverage, and the run defense has been shaky outside of the Raiders win in Week Three.
This is a team that needs to prove something, and beating a talented opponent like the Ravens would be a great way to get the stink off the team, as Cameron Heyward put it the other day. But if Clark is right and nothing changes, it could end up being a really long season.
For now, all we can do is wait until Sunday to see if this looks like a team motivated to change.
