Tag: Matt Canada

Is OC Arthur Smith wasting Russell Wilson’s talent?

Arthur Smith’s playcalling is under fire as questions grow about whether he’s wasting Russell Wilson’s deep ball in Pittsburgh.

Are the fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers experiencing their own rendition of a Matt Canada-esque Groundhog Day with OC Arthur Smith? While Smith’s offense is schematically better than anything Canada did for the Steel City, his playcalling in recent weeks has left much to be desired.

From failed gadget plays with Justin Fields to obvious and predictable run calls, it appears Smith is wasting the talented arm of QB Russell Wilson.

It is understandable that Smith would attempt to run the ball in large quantities behind an offensive line that struggles with pass protection. However, Wilson has proven time and time again that when defenses are forced to respect his ‘moon ball,’ the Steelers win football games.

While the blame game has recently focused on Wilson’s red zone struggles, it is Smith’s ineptitude in calling proper scoring plays that is truly at fault.

Smith will need to reevaluate his playsheet moving forward, or the Steelers are in for a long six weeks to close out the 2024 season.

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One year ago today, the Steelers offense changed forever

One year ago, the Steelers fired OC Matt Canada, starting a journey to rebuild their offense and achieve success under OC Arthur Smith.

One year ago today, fans of the Black and Gold danced in the streets of Pittsburgh, and excitement could be seen on the face of every member of the Steelers organization. On November 21, 2023, the Pittsburgh Steelers fired OC Matt Canada.

Under Canada’s 2023 offensive scheme, through his eleven games that season, the Steelers’ offense posted five games with 17 points or less. His last game as offensive coordinator came in Week 11, following a mere 10 points scored against the Cleveland Browns.

While it took some time, the Steelers would score 34 points against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16 and 30 points against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 17.

While fans were forced to play the blame game between then-starting QB Kenny Pickett, backup QB Mitchell Trubisky, and former OC Matt Canada, the offense improved to 19.7 points per game without Canada calling the plays.

Ultimately, one year ago today marked the beginning of the journey to solving the Steelers’ offensive issues and resulted in an impressive offense led by OC Arthur Smith and QB Russell Wilson.

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Was the Steelers’ hire of Arthur Smith a mistake?

The new Steelers offense looks an awful lot like the old Steelers offense.

The biggest move of a very busy offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers was the hire of new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. Despite his struggles as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, his tenure as the Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator gave Steelers’ fans hope.

However, reports from training camp about how good the new offense has looked at practice, it’s looked just as bad in two preseason games. In fact, a case can be made this new offensive is worse than the old one under Matt Canada.

Perhaps more than the struggles, it’s the style of offense Smith is bringing in that is worrisome. The NFL has become a league that focuses heavily on scoring in bunches and throwing the ball. Smith’s offense feels ultra-conservative and almost a step backward.

Did the Steelers make a mistake hiring Smith as opposed to another offense coordinator this offseason? There were plenty of big names and up-and-coming young guys out there with more modern approaches to the offense. Have you seen enough to call your shot or do you want to wait and see? Cast your vote.

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Steelers new offense reminding everyone of the old offense

Did the Steelers hire Matt Canada 2.0 to run their offense?

Last season, Pittsburgh Steelers fans were ready to show up to Acrisure Stadium with torches and pitchforks to run former offensive coordinator Matt Canada out of town. Thankfully, head coach Mike Tomlin fired Canada during the season to help avoid the angry mob.

The Steelers’ offense saw a nice uptick in the second half of the season due in part to a committee approach to running the offense which made us think there was light at the end of the tunnel.

In the offseason, the Steelers signed offensive coordinator Arthur Smith after his failed tenure as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in hopes of bringing the Steelers offense up to date in the modern NFL.

Through two preseason games and all of training camp, this has not been the case. As much as it pains us to say it, the Steelers offense of 2024 actually looks worse than the 2023 version. We saw an offense in the 2023 preseason that pushed the football down the field and put up points quickly.

None of that carried over the regular season so perhaps we are jumping the gun. Or maybe Smith is more like Canada than any of us wanted to admit when he was hired.

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Steelers 2024 offense will benefit from an incredibly low bar

The Steelers offense has nowhere to go but up after the last two seasons.

Some NFL fans just don’t know how good they have it.

For the past two seasons minimum, the Pittsburgh Steelers have wallowed with one of the worst offenses in the NFL. The combination of former offensive coordinator Matt Canada along with a mediocre cast of characters at quarterback created an environment where anything is better than what they had before.

This is the approach Steelers’ beat writer Mark Kaboly took when he talked about the addition of Russell Wilson at quarterback this season. Here’s what he had to say about it in this article on The Athletic.

Wilson isn’t the player he was in Seattle — we can all agree on that — but the Steelers don’t need him to be DangeRuss or even ‘Let Russ Cook.’ If he makes some of the easy throws that Kenny Pickett routinely missed last year, a middling offense — led by a more accomplished coordinator in Arthur Smith — could turn into one that could win games.

There’s no doubt the bar has been set so low with Canada and Kenny Pickett that the only place the Steelers offense can go is up with Wilson and new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.

IN 2023, the Steelers offensive was No. 25 in yards and No. 28 in scoring.

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Steelers players are loving ‘unreal’ Arthur Smith offense

The Arthur Smith offense is already impressing the Steelers.

Last season was a comedy of errors for Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Week after week he trotted out the same mundane, predictable schemes and defenses had no issue shutting things down.

Even after the Steelers fired Canada mid-season, the offense had to go through some growing pains before it was able to be productive and even that was as much to do with a change at quarterback as anything else.

But this year it sounds like things are different and for the first time in a long time, there is some excitement surrounding the offense. Steelers writer Mark Kaboly shared what he is hearing from the team and the players have spoken to say they love the new offense with one calling it ‘unreal’.

The first day of OTAs is Tuesday and while we don’t expect to see it in depth, the upgrades should be pretty obvious.

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Jaylen Warren highlights ‘biggest difference’ between Arthur Smith, Matt Canada

Jaylen Warren takes a subtle shot at his old offensive coordinator.

For what felt like months (because it was), all of the Pittsburgh Steelers fandom was screaming from the mountaintops for head coach Mike Tomlin to fire offensive coordinator Matt Canada. It got to a point where it seemed that Tomlin was the only person in all of football who didn’t see the harm Canada was doing to the offense.

But mercifully, Tomlin finally found his way to relieve Canada of his duties during the season and after an OC by committee approach in the second half of 2023, this offense belongs to Arthur Smith now. Smith struggled as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons but his experience as the offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans before that and be excited about what he brings to this offense.

One guy who seems to be excited about the change is running back Jaylen Warren. He was on the Not Just Football podcast with Cam Heyward and took a shot at Canada when he talked about how Smith runs his meetings.

“His biggest difference is he’s very interactive in the meetings,” “You want to pay attention because he’s gonna call you out if you’re not paying attention. That’s happened a couple times. I think his approach to being the OC is really good.”

Every Sunday it seems like Canada was just mailing in the gameplan so it makes sense he was mailing it in during meetings too.

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Rich Eisen: Steelers OC Arthur Smith is ‘exactly what the doctor ordered’

Rich Eisen thinks the Steelers got the perfect fit for their offense with the hire of Arthur Smith.

Last season the Pittsburgh Steelers had to take ownership of the fact that keeping offensive coordinator Matt Canada on the staff was a huge mistake. It didn’t take any time for the offense to show signs of life.

Now the Steelers have a new offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith and his scheme promises to better use the team’s skill players while continuing to improve the run game.

For the most part, pundits are positive about the hire including Rich Eisen. He was speaking to Steelers superfan Joe Manganiello and Eisen noted that Smith is “exactly what the doctor ordered” for the Steelers offense.

The bar wasn’t set very high for Smith after the offensive debacle created by Matt Canada and head coach Mike Tomlin. Tomlin must shoulder some blame in this if for no other reason than failing to cut Canada loose sooner. Nevertheless, the pressure on Smith to get the passing game on track and put more points up is palpable already and it is still just February.

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Steelers announce Arthur Smith as new offensive coordinator

The Steelers officially name Arthur Smith the team’s new offensive coordinator.

On Friday, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced they had hired former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith as the team’s new offensive coordinator.

Smith spent the last three seasons with the Falcons and was with the Tennessee Titans from 2011-2020. Smith’s final two seasons with Tennessee he served as the offensive coordinator and the offense was among the very best in the NFL. Running back Derrick Henry rushed for 2,027 yards and quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw for 3,819 yards and had 40 total touchdowns.

Pittsburgh fired Matt Canada midseason with running backs coach Eddie Faulkner and quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan shared the load for the offense. The team saw some improvement but the addition of Smith gives the team stability and a resume of success to build from. Next up will be Smith and head coach Mike Tomlin making the personnel moves to build Smith’s staff.

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