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Watching the Pittsburgh Steelers offense can be frustrating. On Sunday it was infuriating. The Steelers got blown out by the Kansas City Chiefs this week and the offense was hamstrung by offensive coordinator Matt Canada who continues to be incapable of reading the room when it comes to what his team can do.
The first example of this on Sunday was Canada’s insistence on running to the outside with running back Najee Harris. First, Harris is not a speed back and cannot get the corner on those plays. But this is assuming he isn’t breaking tackles in the backfield. Which he was all game long. This is because the Steelers offensive line lacks the necessary athleticism to get out and block those sorts of plays properly.
We said in the past that Canada has tried to run a far too complicated run game for the level of talent along the offensive line. Rather than keeping blocking schemes simple, Canada wants to push things beyond what they are capable of and then seem shocked when it fails.
The same can be said for the passing game. The perfect example was late in the game when Canada called a fake double reverse that was supposed to turn into a pass play.
Asking an offensive line that can barely hold the point of attack for two seconds is suddenly going to be capable of maintaining blocks long enough for Ben Roethlisberger’s double sleight of hand in the backfield and still give him time to square up to the line and make a throw. This is the football example of slamming your hand in a door over and over hoping one of these times it won’t hurt.
At the end of the season head coach Mike Tomlin needs to take a close look at which coaches he wants to be hitched to his wagon as this team enters the post-Roethlisberger era.
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