Despite the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 on Sunday, there were still plenty of ‘Fire Canada’ chants ringing out around Acrisure Stadium. The offense failed to put points up at all in the first quarter and only managed three points in the entire first half. They only found the end zone once and that was with just over four minutes left in the fourth quarter thanks to QB Kenny Pickett finding WR George Pickens for a 41-yard touchdown.
It was another lackluster offensive performance for the Steelers. They gained 87 yards on the ground on 30 rushing attempts and 224 yards through the air. So it makes sense that, despite the win, fans would still be calling for offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s firing.
However, two-time Super Bowl champion and former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger disagrees. He discussed the topic on Monday’s episode of Footbahlin With Ben Roethlisberger, and he is not calling for a change at offensive coordinator.
“I don’t think you’re making a coordinator change in the middle of the season anyway,” Roethlisberger said. “You’re not going to make that change. And really, you’re sitting at 3-2, you’re number one in the AFC North right now. I wouldn’t make a lot of changes at all.”
That’s a far cry from head coach Mike Tomlin’s impassioned statement of making changes after the Houston Texans blowout defeat in Week Four. Most fans were beyond calling for just Canada at that point and were really going after Tomlin. That persisted when the changes made during the week were depth chart changes with no tangible impacts. However, Roethlisberger continued to explain what he would do differently within the scope of keeping Canada as coordinator.
“You could go in and tweak some things,” Roethlisberger said. “Tweaks and changes are a big difference. You’re not coming in and overhauling anything… Let’s maybe go at some schemes. Let’s work on some wide receiver screens or whatever it is. Little things like that I think are appropriate. But at 3-2 going in, I think you should feel okay. Let’s just figure out what we need to do moving forward to maybe fine-tune things. How do we start faster? What’s it going to take to score early?”
The slow starts have been a major theme for the Steelers this season. Obviously against Baltimore, the only points in the first half were a field goal in the second quarter and the offense itself accounted for 12 points in the fourth quarter. In fact, the offense has only scored two touchdowns in the first half through five games, one in the win against the Las Vegas Raiders and one in the blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers to open the season. To call the offense slow-starting feels inadequate.
Roethlisberger thinks that the best usage of time for Canada and the offensive staff during the bye week is self-scouting and trying to drill down and figure out exactly what it is that the team is good at and is failing at.
“You need to look at where are we deficient?” Roethlisberger said. “Where is it? Is it yards on first down? Is it third-down efficiency? Is it second down? Are we good at running the ball in double-team blocks or are we better at zone? Use this time to break down where we’re good and where we’re not. Where you’re good, fine-tune it, keep working it. Where you’re not, either get rid of it or get better.”
This is the time to make those adjustments. As Roethlisberger noted, full-on overhauling isn’t going to happen, even during the bye week. There’s simply not enough time to start from the ground up in two weeks of practice. That’s for during the offseason. Instead, this is the time to zero in on the root causes of what’s causing the offense to fail and find solutions. It’s also the time to look at the successful plays and figure out how to do even better and maybe learn something that can help fix other issues.
If the Steelers had lost to Baltimore, it would likely be a different story. The game was ugly and for most of the game, the offense was terrible. However, they made some plays in the fourth quarter that earned them the win after the defense (and Ravens’ miscues) kept the game close through three quarters.
Now it’s the time for the offensive coaching staff to get together and make the changes needed to get the offense off the ground. Otherwise, Pittsburgh won’t be sitting atop the AFC North for very long.
You can watch the entire episode of Footbahlin With Ben Roethlisberger below.
