Firing Matt Canada was justified. But it isn’t any less surprising. Pittsburgh has been playing professional football since 1933, meaning there aren’t many things it hasn’t done yet. They’ve been the worst team in the league. They’ve won Super Bowls. They’ve drafted the first overall pick without ever watching him. They’ve had their head coach forget to show up to games. They’ve been stuck on a tarmac for hours on end. There’s a story for just about everything.
But dismissing a coordinator in the middle of a season? A first. A literal first.
Getting rid of any coach in the middle of the season is exceedingly rare. Finding examples of it is nearly impossible to do. Offensive line coach Adrian Klemm left for Oregon during the 2021 season. Special Teams Coordinator Al Everest was canned by Mike Tomlin days before the 2012 season kicked off. Head coach Buddy Parker resigned shortly before the 1965 season, though perhaps that was to avoid being fired.
But a position as high up as coordinator during the year? Canada’s in a league of his own.
You’d have to go back to 1941 to find something that even comes close to this. The well-repeated fact of yesterday was the last Steelers coach to be fired midseason was Bert Bell that year, who stepped down as Steelers’ head coach after the team lost its first two games. But he wasn’t the only one that year. Bell’s replacement, Aldo ‘Buff’ Donelli, became the Steelers’ interim head coach. Soon after, he was gone, too.
The nerds we are, we’ve written about Donelli before, our David Orochena with a great article in 2020. Quick history lesson to summarize his piece. Donelli tried to become the head coach of two football teams at once, running Duquesne in the college ranks while coaching the Steelers. Turns out, the NFL didn’t love that idea and gave him an ultimatum. Either continue coaching Pittsburgh or return to Duquesne. His choice was easy. The Dukes were a far better team, Donelli hadn’t won a game with the Steelers, and he was basically with the college ranks most of the time, spending gamedays at Duquesne. So he resigned and was replaced by interim interim head coach Walt Kiesling, who finished out the final three games of the year, leading Pittsburgh to its only victory.
Headlines from the defunct Pittsburgh Press the following day described the change and Donelli’s decision.
But that’s a history lesson that I know isn’t relevant. Canada’s gone. That’s the present day, that’s what matters. The point is to say it takes a lot for the team to make a move like this. Pittsburgh being in the playoff race and not wanting to squander the chance played a role in Canada being shown the door. The frustration clearly evident in player’s voices following Sunday’s loss. If that’s what Najee Harris and company were saying publicly, imagine what they were saying behind closed doors. Let’s just say it was a long bus ride from Cleveland to Pittsburgh.
For the sake of the Steelers and their season, a move had to be made. It’s one for the record books. A first. Now their goal is to never have to do it again.
