Former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger broke down the Steelers’ ugly 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans on the latest episode of his Footbahlin’ podcast, and during his breakdown, he dropped an interesting nugget. Roethlisberger said he was told that offensive coordinator Matt Canada, whose first year as offensive coordinator was during Roethlisberger’s last season in the league, changed “a lot of things” in the playbook after Roethlisberger’s retirement.
“I don’t know their playbook. Their playbook has changed, I was told when I left Matt really changed a lot of things. And that’s fine, it’s his offense, he can do whatever he wants.”
The idea that Canada would change things as he adjusts from Roethlisberger to a new quarterback, in this case primarily Kenny Pickett, isn’t really a surprise. Roethlisberger was a known commodity, and everyone on the field knew what he was capable of and what he liked to do at quarterback. With Pickett, Canada had to adjust to a new signal-caller who may have liked different concepts and build his playbook with that in mind.
While Mitch Trubisky started last season as the quarterback, Pickett quickly took over but the offense remained overly simplified and basic. That’s carried over into this year. Canada changing the playbook makes sense and is actually a positive given that he’s at least showing he’s adapting to his team’s personnel/talent. But the changes haven’t actually worked. That’s the real issue.
Both Trubisky and Pickett are more mobile than Roethlisberger was at the end of his career and that allows for more designs that allow the quarterback to use his legs. There should have been changes, and there were. But there needs to be more changes and more adaptations to expand the playbook and build the offense out.
As Alex Kozora detailed, the much-maligned fourth-and-one play call that Pickett ended up hurting his knee on during the Week Four loss was the same play the Steelers ran literally two plays earlier. Canada sees a concept work, assumes the defense won’t adapt, and goes to it again.
It’s happened repeatedly this season, and whether that’s a case of there not being enough variety in the playbook or Canada’s own incompetence is something we won’t know since we don’t have our hands on the playbook (and I’m not going to try and steal Kenny Pickett’s car to figure it out).
So good on Canada for at least adapting to his personnel and changing the playbook. But he might want to look into changing it again, given the Steelers have four offensive touchdowns in four games.
Watch the full episode of Footbahlin’ below:
