For the first time in franchise history, the Pittsburgh Steelers fired a coordinator midseason. Even the “1941” stat you heard buzzing around that time, that was a head-coaching change, Bert Bell resigning to continue coaching Duquesne when the NFL gave him a one-or-the-other ultimatum.
In that sense, it made Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals unique. How would the much-maligned Steelers offense look with the shift to interim OC Eddie Faulkner and play caller/quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan? Would there be a difference? There was as the Steelers racked up 421 yards of offense and moved the ball as well as they have all season, even if the final product of 16 points was disappointing.
On the most recent edition of Ben Roethlisberger’s Footbahlin podcast, he weighed in on the coordinator change and immediate results. After saying last Wednesday that he was surprised by the Steelers firing Canada, he expressed sympathy for him.
“I do feel bad for Matt,” Roethlisberger told his co-host Spence. “I hated it for him in the sense that you never wanna see someone lose their job. You never wanna see someone be talked about as much as he was. Maybe he’s happy now just for the simple fact that he’s kind of put out of his misery, if you will…I hate it for Matt [for] all the stuff that happened.”
Roethlisberger is in the minority of people who feel bad for Canada, but his point still rings true. The most disliked coach in football, maybe all of sports, Canada and his family heard about it every day. At Steelers games, at Penguins games, and all over the country, “Fire Canada” became as much a meme as a critique.
But a change was needed. Pittsburgh’s locker room was boiling over with frustration, and regardless of blame, Canada’s offense hadn’t produced the desired results for three seasons. Faulkner and Sullivan injected a spark into the offense and Roethlisberger praised the job Sullivan did as play caller.
“I love Sully. I think Sully was awesome,” he said. “He was my quarterback coach the last year there. Really had a lot of respect for him. Texting him before the game, texted him after the game.”
An NFL coaching veteran, Sullivan was hired in 2021 to fill Canada’s role as quarterbacks coach after Canada was promoted to replace the outgoing Randy Fichtner. Working with the likes of Eli Manning over his career, Sullivan came to Pittsburgh with prior play-calling experience, doing so at Tampa Bay and with the Giants. While the offense wasn’t perfect and made too many mistakes, Roethlisberger liked the scheme and game plan Sullivan devised with Faulkner. Especially the opening script.
“I thought one of the things that Sully did great was getting everybody touches early. Pat [Freiermuth] got a touch early. Diontae [Johnson] got a touch early. Jaylen [Warren], George [Pickens], it felt like everybody was [involved] rather than just calling plays. It’s like, ‘Okay, let me kind of get everyone a touch. Let’s see how everything’s going’. It was just so unique in the play calling.”
Routinely urging the Steelers to get Freiermuth more involved, Roethlisberger said he loved the first play of hitting the tight end down the seam for a 24-yard gain. And though the drive ended in a punt, Freiermuth, RB Najee Harris, Johnson, and TE Connor Heyward all touched the ball on the opening sequence. Pittsburgh put together a lengthy drive on its second possession with Pickens and Jaylen Warren touching the ball on the first two plays. By game’s end, eight different receivers had caught at least one pass while the offense achieved perfect balance, 33 runs to 33 passes.
In more detail, Roethlisberger said the offense showed better variety while doing things QB Kenny Pickett was comfortable with.
“Some deep stuff, some short stuff. Some runs, some move in the pocket. Like I thought getting Kenny moving around, they got him moving out of the pocket,” Roethlisberger said. “All things I think play to Kenny’s strengths. But getting everybody involved early, I thought was super-smart by Sully. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Roethlisberger also liked the Steelers’ use of a Pony backfield with Harris and Warren on the field together, converting a 3rd and 1 off play-action and hitting Warren in the flat. In fairness, it’s a grouping that had been used under Canada in similar circumstances but it’s still a creative way to get your best players on the field.
“You can use one as a decoy, you can run one,” Roethlisberger said. “You can almost play one as a fullback. So many things when you have two dynamic guys at running back to have them both on the field at the same time. That’s smart.”
Now that the 400-yard streak is over, the next one to end is the Steelers scoring 30 points in a victory. They haven’t even reached 30 points, win or loss, in more than a calendar year, last doing so in a 37-30 defeat to the Bengals in Week 11 of last season. The last time they put up 30-plus in a victory came in Week 10 of the 2020 season, a 36-10 drubbing of the Bengals, the longest streak in the NFL. Bottom line, points are the name of the game and the Steelers need more of them. Still, it’s a solid start and Sunday’s showing only highlighted what the offense was capable of without Canada at the helm.
Watch the whole episode of Roethlisberger’s latest show below.
