The big news of the morning was the firing of offensive coordinator Matt Canada. The offense played well below the standard on Sunday against the Cleveland Browns which in hindsight was the straw that broke the camel’s back and sealed Canada’s fate.
With this news, Tomlin revealed that RB coach Eddie Faulkner will be the interim offensive coordinator and help with the game plan while QB coach Mike Sullivan will call the plays on gameday. These changes raise into question just how different the offense could look.
“There are a lot of challenges obviously doing what it is that we’re doing,” Tomlin said in his Tuesday press conference. “The unknown component is a potential positive, so we’re gonna hold our cards close to our vest.”
Faulkner has never been an offensive coordinator in the NFL but Sullivan has. He spent two seasons as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ coordinator in 2012-13 and two seasons with the New York Giants in 2016-17. The Giants portion of his career was spent working with Eli Manning.
“You still gotta coach running backs. We still gotta coach quarterbacks. The strength of the pack is the pack…I just think that’s the natural and appropriate thing is you distribute responsibility,” Tomlin said when asked why Canada’s role is being split between two people.
It is unlikely that the team will be able to install new packages and plays into the offensive playbook in the middle of a season, but the timing of when plays are called, and the in-game adjustment component of this change will be the more significant aspect.
For example, if given the same opportunity at the end of a game like the Steelers had on Sunday in Cleveland, the same plays might be available to Faulkner and Sullivan, but they might come to a different conclusion than Canada in their choice of plays. People might be expecting wholesale changes to the offensive playbook, but that is unlikely to be the case. As Tomlin said, the unknown could be a potential positive.
We will have to wait and see.
