The Pittsburgh Steelers made a significant decision to fire former-offensive coordinator Matt Canada, blaming his, sometimes bizarre, playcalling for their offensive woes.
It was a bold move, and one that puts a lot of pressure on the players to show Canada was the issue and not them. QB Kenny Pickett knows the pressure is on now.
“It’s a challenge to everybody,” Pickett said. “I feel like you have to take it personal. It’s a guy you’ve worked with since I got drafted here, you want to play great, you don’t want to see anyone get let go like that. So absolutely we have to answer the bell, find out what we need to do to play better and then just go take care of business.”
CANADA TAKES THE BLAME, BUT THE STEELERS NEED MORE
“You can’t have wholesale changes at this point in the season,” Pickett said. “We’re going to run the system that we’ve been using, and Coach Sully, Coach Faulk, they’re going to put their wrinkle in on it, on what they want to run and when they want to run it.”
“I wasn’t aware of any moves that were going to be made,” Pickett said Wednesday. “… You hate to see it. You don’t want to see one of your coaches lose their job. We all got to be better. Called coach, wished him well. We had a great conversation, but you got to bounce back quick and get ready to go.”
Center Mason Cole agreed, “Him losing his job and being fired is on all of us,” Cole said. “It’s on all the coaches and all the players. We weren’t good enough for him to keep his job, and that falls on not just him on all the us. But we have to take that as it goes. And we play a division game here in five days, so the train will keep moving. I’m looking forward to doing a battle with these guys and just kind of putting this behind us and looking forward and having fun.”
Truth be told Canada is an easy scapegoat for the Steelers. But unless the product on the field improves, it may prove to be a poor decision. Pickett has struggled throughout his time in the NFL, and Canada was not long ago touted as an offensive guru. Pittsburgh have opted to put their future, at least some of it, in the hands of their QB. Let’s see how that works out.
For more like this, you can visit our NFL section here. Also, follow us on Facebook for coverage of the NFL and much more.