Pittsburgh Steelers fans worldwide were rejoicing Tuesday almost to a fault. The team announced that offensive coordinator Matt Canada was fired first thing in the morning. To look back at Canada’s tenure is to look back at a time of sheer offensive ineptitude.
However, one person is rarely at fault for this big of a failure. All the pressure that has been on Canada is not magically gone and neither are the issues. The target of the pressure and the onus for fixing the problems simply moves to someone else. That someone is QB Kenny Pickett.
On Tuesday’s episode of The Herd, host Colin Cowherd acknowledged the necessity of removing Canada. He also unloaded on Pickett.
“Firing Matt Canada is the first step,” Cowherd said. “But in the last 10 games, Kenny Pickett has six touchdown passes. As good as [the Steelers] draft and as brilliantly as they have developed, he’s getting worse. In nine of his 22 games as an NFL quarterback, he hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass with excellent wide receivers and a great young tight end. He’s had one of 22 games with multiple touchdown passes.”
Now, you can say that at least that multi-passing touchdown game came in 2023. However, five of his nine games without a passing touchdown have also come in 2023 with four of those five games coming in the last five weeks. He’s gone two straight games without throwing for a touchdown.
Pickett has also had four games this season with a completion percentage under 60%. He’s throwing for slightly fewer yards per attempt this season versus his rookie season and averaging 12.7 yards per game fewer than as a rookie. His QBR dropped from 53.6 as a rookie down to 35.7 so far this season.
Now we can blame Canada all we want. However, Cowherd compares Pickett in his second year versus a rookie quarterback that the Steelers faced earlier this season that doesn’t paint Pickett in the prettiest of lights.
“Go ahead, make excuses, say it’s all Matt Canada,” Cowherd said. “But CJ Stroud, in an unstable environment in Houston, first-time play caller, rookie coach, four offensive linemen missing, Week Two threw for 384 yards, two TDs, and no picks. That’s like a month’s worth of productivity for Kenny Pickett. And the Steelers are stable with a great defense and terrific weapons.”
Yes, Stroud was the second-overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft while Pickett was the 20th overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. By that measurement, Stroud should be better. However, the support system around Pickett versus Stroud should be night and day. Canada has plenty of experience calling plays at the college level and was in his third year as the offensive coordinator for the Steelers.
Stroud’s offensive coordinator is Bobby Slowik. He’s never called plays before this season and has only been coaching on the offensive side of the ball since 2019. He spent two years as an offensive assistant coach with the San Francisco 49ers before spending 2021 as the offensive passing game specialist and then 2022 as the offensive passing game coordinator. We all know that Kyle Shanahan is the one running the show on offense in San Francisco, though.
As for Pickett in that game? Completed 15 of 23 attempts for 114 yards and an interception. That’s against a Texans defense that gives up an average of 20.8 points per game and is the 25th-ranked defense in passing yardage allowed. No one would blame you if you thought that the statistics for the quarterbacks were flipped.
So what does that mean for Pickett and Pittsburgh? Well, the team is still in the thick of the playoff race at 6-4 with seven games to play. By no means is the season over. However, Pickett needs to step up and show something he really hasn’t. Otherwise, what Cowherd says has to happen next after Canada’s dismissal will actually be what has to happen.
“Matt Canada didn’t help,” Cowherd said. “The system, the scheme, not perfect. But it’s the first of two steps. The other one will be much more difficult, moving off the local kid.”
The clock struck midnight on Canada’s time with the Steelers. The clock is very much ticking for Pickett.
