Throughout the 2023 season, ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith has not held back in regards to his disdain for Matt Canada as the offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So, when news broke early Tuesday morning that the Steelers fired Canada, ending his time as the offensive coordinator and turning to running backs coach Eddie Faulkner and quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan as co-OCs the rest of the season, the expectation was that Smith would be quite happy with the move.
Appearing on First Take Tuesday morning, Smith was more reserved than normal, stating that it was “about damn time” that the Steelers made the change, though he did it with class, saying he wasn’t saying it with a smile on his face or any comedy involved.
“It was necessary. It was long, long, long overdue. About damn time. I don’t say that with a smile on my face. I don’t say that with any comedy or anything like that. I don’t enjoy somebody losing their job. That’s never something fun,” Smith said of Canada’s firing, according to video via First Take on ESPN. “I don’t wish anything. I want everybody to make their money and be able to feed their family and take care. But you have to be productive.
“And the fact of the matter is, he was not only non-productive this season. He’s been non-productive since he’s been the offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
It never feels good to see a guy lose his job, especially in this profession. It’s much deeper than just football as families are affected, from wives to children, etc. That’s the case with Canada right now.
That said, it was long past time for the Steelers to make a move at offensive coordinator. Sunday against the Cleveland Browns was the final straw as Pittsburgh mustered just 10 points and just 249 yards, losing in rather embarrassing, frustrating fashion to a rookie fifth-string quarterback that looked better than Pittsburgh’s own second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett in his 22 career start.
As Smith stated, you have to be productive. Canada simply wasn’t as offensive coordinator of the Steelers. In his tenure in Pittsburgh, the offense was objectively bad.
In Canada’s tenure, Pittsburgh never recorded a 400-yard game offensively, had just one game with 300+ passing yards, two games with 30+ points, seven games with two+ passing touchdowns, 27 games with 20 or more first downs, and 28 games with 20 or less points.
You simply can’t have an offense like that in today’s NFL, yet the Steelers continued to trot that offense out there over the last three seasons. Pickett regressed hard this season, players are growing frustrated, and something needed to be done.
“You get to a point where it’s like, wait a minute, if a player was this non-productive, he’d have been gone,” Smith added, according video via ESPN. “If somebody else was nonproductive, he’d have been gone. At some point in time you gotta get the job done.”
The Steelers pulled the plug on Tuesday morning.
Now, moving forward the rest of the season not much will change from a style standpoint, but it is a move that needed to be made to show the players that they are heard and that the team is committed to figuring things out on the offensive side of the ball.
