The Pittsburgh Steelers underwent a significant change this week with the firing of offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Since the change was in-season, the playbook and scheme will remaing mostly the same, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some small changes. The Steelers promoted RB Coach Eddie Faulkner to interim offensive coordinator, and he will lead the meetings and be in charge of putting together the game plan with input from all the other offensive coaches.
A lot of things need to change and start getting better, but one thing that has been working recently is the run game. Faulkner’s running backs have been producing over the last few games, and if the offense is to succeed moving forward, they will need to continue to build on that success. Jaylen Warren talked about it in his media availability after Wednesday’s practice: “We don’t plan on doing anything different.” Warren has led the way with two straight 100-plus yard rushing performances and Najee Harris has found success in his own right, albeit to a lesser degree.
Faulkner was available to the media for the first time during Thursday’s coordinator press conferences and talked about continuing to build on the run game.
“We come in every day to go to work,” Faulkner said in a clip posted on X by TribLIVE’s Chris Adamski. “We are chipping away every day in how we can get better. That might be a tweak in a meeting. That might be a tweak in a scheme or a blocking scheme…the techniques that they’re playing up front is going to require us to block something this way. So we are just trying to get really, really detailed. Keep the guys together, let them talk to each other and what they’re seeing, and then trust in what we see when we go out there and go in to execute. That’s going to always continue to kind of be the theme throughout.”
Being that the Steelers promoted their running backs coach for the interim offensive coordinator job and that the rushing attack has been so successful lately, it seems likely that the Steelers will continue to lean into their run game. Warren and Harris combined for 164 yards on 21 carries against one of the best defenses in the league in Week 11. That comes out to a very impressive 7.81 yards per carry average. If the team can continue to build off the run game and the defense can continue getting healthy, that is a viable formula for success down the stretch of this season.
