With the Pittsburgh Steelers firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada, QB Kenny Pickett had his best game of the season in the team’s 16-10 Week 12 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Per a report from Pro Football Network insider Adam Caplan, the primary issue that led to Canada getting fired was the lack of development by Pickett.
“Pro Football Network talked to multiple league sources who have graded the Steelers’ offensive tape this season and cited the following issues with Canada’s offensive scheme: too many college concepts, poor spacing created, lack of an intermediate passing game, and lack of identity. But even with those issues, the biggest problem was the lack of development from second-year QB Kenny Pickett, who team sources said had ‘an outstanding offseason,'” Caplan wrote.
While the offense was rudimentary and boring, it was Pickett’s struggles that caused Canada to be let go.
“In fact, we noted in this space prior to the start of training camp how Pickett’s arm strength improvement was noticeable during their OTAs, and from all accounts, he seemed to be ready to make a big jump after having a strong training camp and pre-season,” Caplan wrote.
“But once the season started, sources said from game-tape evaluation that Pickett’s arm-strength issue returned, and he wasn’t ‘driving the ball down the field’ and ‘he wasn’t playing with a lot of confidence.'”
Caplan did note that the Steelers were impressed with Pickett in the preseason, and that his arm had gotten stronger. Pickett was a media darling after his preseason performance, and then the regular season came and the supposed improvement went away, as Pickett even appeared to take a step back at times this season.
Canada seemed to encourage the Steelers to play conservatively and not take shots down the field. While it led to a lack of turnovers, it also meant that Pickett wasn’t even looking to throw deep and instead relied on dump-offs and shorter routes instead of looking to push the ball. It hampered his development, and it’s led to doubts whether he can be Pittsburgh’s franchise quarterback.
But with Mike Sullivan running the show as Pittsburgh’s offensive play caller yesterday, Pickett played his best game of the season, throwing for 278 yards in the win over Cincinnati. If he can continually play the way he did against the Bengals, then it’ll prove that firing Canada was absolutely the right decision. It had to happen due to how bad the offense was, but if Pickett is already looking this much better sans Canada, then he was even worse than it appeared as an offensive coordinator.
Hopefully, Pickett can continue his upward trajectory that started against Cincinnati and the Steelers offense continues to take a step forward.
