PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada took issue with the way his comments about his offense’s ability to come from behind were characterized on the CBS broadcast of the Steelers’ Week 4 loss to the Houston Texans.
CBS broadcaster Spero Dedes said during his call of the game that Canada had relayed during the pre-game production meeting that Cananda didn’t feel that his offense could come from behind to win games.
“One thing Matt Canada told us when we sat with us yesterday at their hotel, they’re not quite built to come back from big leads and so the way they start games, so critical,” Dedes said. “Young quarterback. There’s still so much newness in this offense.”
Canada called that “an unbelievable misinterpretation of the conversation.”
“The conversation was why we ran more and had more play action against the Raiders than the opening game,” Canada said on Thursday. “You look at the stat sheet and why did it look that way? As you guys all know, the start of that 49ers game didn’t go the way that we planned. …
“We’re down three scores with 3:13 to go in the third. Three scores. You’re not going to stick to your running plan and your plan of running play action when you’re down three scores. All we care about here is winning. So the conversation was, at that point, the plan wasn’t built to do that. You had to go.
“Obviously, I believed we were going to win until the end. I kept throwing it. To the point that our lineman had to 46 drop-backs. Kenny had to do that. At no point was that conversation meant in that regard. I certainly believe he knew that. Obviously, it was taken wrong, if not. Of all the things we want to talk about and say, at no point do we doubt our players, doubt where we are, doubt we can come back. No doubts.
“I was literally saying where we were. Any football person would tell you, you’re down three scores with 18 minutes to go, you’ve got to start going faster, you’ve got to start being in 2-minute mode. You have to score more points. That’s how that came out. Certainly, everybody on the offense is well aware of that.”
Canada went on to say that he “firmly believes” in the Steelers’ offense, and its ability to come from behind.