Mike Tomlin's time with the Pittsburgh Steelers has been a victorious one given the fact that he has never had a losing season. One of his major flaws, however, has been his offensive coaching staff hires as well as promotions from within. The latest inexcusable move was giving Matt Canada the reigns to the offense after him being quarterbacks coach for only a year. The group has looked stagnant in both 2021 and 2022. There has not been much hope provided for the future. As bad as Tomlin has been with in-house promotions, he needs to give the play calling duties to experienced quarterbacks coach, Mike Sullivan sooner rather than later.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Kenny Pickett (#8) and quarterbacks coach, Mike Sullivan (right) on the field during a practice at 2022 training camp at St. Vincent College. | Jordan Schofield / SteelerNation (Twitter: @JSKO_PHOTO)
The team is averaging 88 yards per game on the ground and just 224 yards passing. In today's NFL, that will get you absolutely nowhere even if you have the highest paid defense in the league. To make things worse, Pittsburgh is only averaging 14.3 points per game if you take away Minkah Fitzpatrick's Week 1 pick-6 off of Joe Burrow. There needs to be a change and it could come after the Week 8 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles heading into the bye week.
Under Canada, the Steelers have played 25 games with him calling the offense. They have scored over 20 points only five times and all the occurrences came last season with Ben Roethlisberger under center.
There are several reasons why Tomlin needs to make this move and it starts, not with Canada's inconsistencies, but to save himself from making another bad coaching move at season's end. If the head coach decides to let Canada stick around for the entire season, he could quite possibly end up promoting Sullivan for the 2023 campaign anyway. It can't get much worse than it is now, so why not see what Sullivan can do and avoid another mistake in the future.
Sullivan has made his way around the NFL and has spent time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos and now the Steelers. He led the Buccaneers and Giants offenses for two years each within the past 10 years. Albeit, he didn't have the most successful stints as an offensive coordinator, there is inherently no risk promoting him now, midseason.
Steelers offensive coordinator, Matt Canada and head coach Mike Tomlin on the field at Acrisure Stadium | Credit: Matt Freed/Post-Gazette
Best case scenario, Pickett thrives under him and he does get a shot to call the plays in 2023. Worse case, the offense does more of the same, sputters and Tomlin and Art Rooney II can conduct a legitimate search outside of the organization in the offseason for a bright offensive mind.
If the offensive unit ends up performing poorly yet again against Philadelphia next Sunday, Tomlin needs to accept the fact that Canada's system and ideas are failures and see what is on the other side of the fence. There are no guarantees that Sullivan steps in and turns this into a high-powered machine, however it is fair to say that the current offensive coordinator's schematics aren't the future of the organization.
There hasn't been a time this year when the Steelers offense was fully in sync. They have been flagged four times for ineligible receiver down field as was seen once again in the Sunday Night Football matchup against the Miami Dolphins. The league average is just over one per team. The run-pass options seem to even have the players confused on the field.
Canada's group has also been called for illegal shift twice and one came in a crucial third and short against Miami in the fourth quarter. The league average per team is just .25 in 2022. There is no direction and absolutely no reason for these mistakes. It tells us that there is confusion even within the system. The Canada experiment needs to end and before Tomlin makes another in-house hiring mistake, he needs to see what Sullivan's rapport looks like with the offense before the season ends.
Do you think the Steelers need to fire Canada and give Sullivan a chance before the year is over? Let us know in the comments below!
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