Award-winning rap artist and entrepreneur Snoop Dogg made an appearance on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show on Friday afternoon and opined about the state of his favorite team—the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I think they just need to bring in some fresh blood on the coaching staff and bring in some more dogs,” he said in a clip of the show posted on X by Pat McAfee. “This is not 1995, it’s 2024. And the offenses that’s moving around the way they’re moving players and doing different schemes and having quarterbacks that’s mobile. Like we need to get that first and foremost.”
The Steelers featured one of the more frustrating offenses in the NFL over the past few seasons. Even prior to Ben Roethlisberger retiring, and Matt Canada’s tenure as the offensive coordinator, the Steelers’ offense has been vanilla compared to some of the high-powered offenses around the league.
Of course, Canada was a big part of not turning that around. Look no further than QB Kenny Pickett’s stats as an indication of the dynamics of the offense. Pickett has 4,474 passing yards with 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 24 career starts. His adjusted net yards per passing attempt is 5.4 for his career, and many of the Steelers’ passing concepts have avoided the middle of the field and preferred short curls or screens that don’t allow for big chunks of yardage. Snoop Dogg, like many Black and Gold fans, wants to see “fresh blood” and fresh concepts to modernize the Steelers’ offensive attack.
The Steelers have had two confirmed interviews with offensive coordinator candidates so far. One with Houston Texans QB coach Jerrod Johnson and the other with Carolina Panthers OC Thomas Brown. Johnson is just 34 years old and Brown is 37. The Steelers appear, at least with their early interviews, to be favoring younger candidates.
Snoop Dogg led with his thoughts on the offense, but he didn’t spare the other side of the ball in his criticism.
“We gotta get our defense back to the point to where it used to be where it’s like Dick LeBeau’s defense,” he said. “It’s exotic blitzes. It’s things that’s happening. You don’t know which safety is coming up…it’s too basic right now. It’s like we play basic football just to basically make it to the playoffs to lose.”
There likely won’t be a ton of change on the defensive coaching staff with DC Teryl Austin reportedly having his contract renewed for two seasons. The defense could look much improved in 2024 by avoiding some of the key injuries that plagued the Steelers in 2023. Tomlin mentioned late in the season that they were calling December plays with September players. They were operating with their defense as if it had superstar S Minkah Fitzpatrick roaming the field when in actuality they had a small handful of players off the practice squad or out of retirement.
