I admit, there was a moment in the game on Sunday night when I started to wonder if Pittsburgh Steelers’ Offensive Coordinator Matt Canada was still calling the plays. Things were just going… Too well? An unconfirmed report earlier on Sunday suggested that Canada had seen his responsibilities change. Whether that meant he wasn’t calling plays or wasn’t as involved in game planning no one really knows. Clearly something was different in Las Vegas Sunday night but I don’t think it had as much to do with these so-called “rumors” as some suspect.
Any thoughts that this earlier rumor had any credibility went out the window on the Steelers’ very first drive. After two solid gains on the ground the Steelers faced a third and short. With Las Vegas loading the box and literally man-up across the interior line, Connor Heyward was stopped before he even got going leading to the team’s first punt. At that moment, there wasn’t a single person wearing Black and Gold that thought anyone but Canada could be calling the plays. It was really that bad of a call and further proof that Kenny Pickett needs the ability to change plays.
All that said, something started to click later on. Both Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren were finding running room albeit minimal. “Minimal” however is still better than “nothing at all” and that helped set up play-action which Kenny Pickett used expertly. Let me now address the elephant in the room. In the first two weeks, the Steelers played two of the top defenses in pro football in San Francisco and Cleveland. Thus the elephant is the Las Vegas Raiders’ defense because it is not anywhere near the level of the aforementioned teams.
Therefore, was the success of Matt Canada’s offense due to his adjustments and dedication to the run or was it simply because the Steelers weren’t playing a very good defense? Both things can be true and I actually believe that they are.
We must understand that even if Mike Tomlin changed the responsibilities for Matt Canada, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t calling plays. And if he wasn’t calling plays we will more than likely never know that so there isn’t much use in overthinking it. I’m going to take the optimist’s approach here and choose to believe that Canada has finally adjusted and has learned from past failures. We didn’t see any jet sweeps and he actually had some creativity designs we hadn’t seen before.
The Steelers’ offense is still a work in progress and it has a long way to go. Whether it gets there under Canada is something I doubt tremendously. For one game however, I saw some signs of hope regardless of who the opponent was and regardless of who was calling the plays. I’ll take what I can get right now.
Image courtesy NBC Sports
