New coaches brought in to boost existing offense
It wasn’t that long ago Mike Tomlin had three former NFL head coaches on his staff. Now he has none. But he is relying on his two latest hires to instill some modern concepts to his offense, even one who has never coached in the NFL.
On the surface, the addition of Matt Canada as Steelers quarterback coach might look like a move merely to hire a guy who once coached across the hall at Pitt. After all, being the quarterback coach on a team that has Ben Roethlisberger is lot like being tourism director for Hawaii.
Canada was not brought in to work with Roethlisberger or help him on his road back from elbow surgery. Nor was he added to install large portions of the offense he ran at Wisconsin, NC State, Pitt, LSU and Maryland, his most recent stop.
By his own admission, it is the
other way around for Canada. He will try to fit in and acquiesce to what Roethlisberger likes to do, what the Steelers and offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner like to do. And he will spend a great deal of time with the young backup quarterbacks, Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges, something that didn’t happen much last year when Fichtner had the dual role of quarterbacks coach.
“I think coaching Ben and his style, whatever input I have on that, I will be involved in what he does well with Randy and what Ben likes and then incorporating that back,” Canada said. “And I think that is more my job.”
But make no mistake, Canada will have input. The
Steelers want to add more presnap shifts, motion and misdirection to their offense and create more confusion in a defense with some of the concepts Canada employed in college. The NFL game is changing, with jet sweeps and quarterback options, and the Steelers want to make sure they keep evolving.
No, they are not trying to become the Kansas City Chiefs and their pinball offense. But they discovered last year they had to find more ways to create space for their wide receivers and maybe generate bigger holes for their running backs.
They are hoping the addition of Canada and wide receivers coach Ike Hilliard, a former NFL receiver for 12 seasons, will help that. The process has already begun, according to some of the Steelers players.
“I know it’s new stuff,” said second-year wide receiver Diontae Johnson, who led all NFL rookies in receptions (59) in 2019. “I’m still learning all of new motions and stuff, stuff he’s brought over to us. I wouldn’t say it’s tough, but it’s something you have to put your mind to and want to learn it.”
Even Roethlisberger mentioned it the other day when he was asked about the direction of the offense.
“You know, we have to do whatever we have to do to win football games,” Roethlisberger said. “That’s kind of the most important thing. It’s throwing the ball if we have to; it’s run the ball if we have to; it’s misdirection stuff. We brought coach Canada in to help with some of that stuff. I think coach Ike [Hilliard] is going to help in a lot of areas. He’s been really kind of giving Randy [Fichtner] a lot of ideas and thoughts and help.”
Tight end Vance McDonald said he expects to see more play-action with Canada’s wrinkles, something he said the Steelers have moved away from the past year or so.
“If we can beat you presnap, why not?,” McDonald said during a Steelers Nation Unite Huddle with fans. “Having coach Canada here introducing that to us and mixing it in to what we have already been doing in the past is new, but a great marriage to the offense. I think we are going to see a lot of great things out of it.”