Matt Canada Takes Blame For Failed Fourth-Down Calls

The Steelers’ fourth-down offense is the exact type of thing that they need to clean up. Now, over the past few weeks, there has been plenty of discourse from those around the team about the blame for these fourth-down plays and what needs to happen. Specifically, on JuJu Smith-Schuster’s failed fourth-down conversion where the Steelers ran a man beater but were faced with zone coverage.

On Thursday, Matt Canada addressed this, and he took full blame for the calls not working, while also explaining that there were other options for Ben Roethlisberger on the play.

“To be honest, all our plays have answers in zone and man,” Canada said. “The play didn’t work, it’s my fault.”

Canada went on to further clarify his point even further that they have a beater for zone and man on each play, but then continued to take the fall for the play calls.

“The play didn’t work, it’s my fault. Every play we have has a zone beater and a man beater.,” Canada said. “But the play didn’t work so it’s my fault and that’s it.”

In the same vein, Canada is noted for being a guru of pre-snap motion, and yet the Steelers are using pre-snap motion ten percent less than they were in 2020. Canada notes that it is all about gameplan and what they believe they can do at a high level versus any given opponent.

“Again, some of it is dependent on the situation of the game,” Canada said. “We’re using whatever we think we can use at the time for us to be effective.”

Canada seems to be taking the fall for this, but not everything is on him with respect to the offense. A lot of it is about execution, as head coach Mike Tomlin said, and not just his quarterback, either. While Canada is far from blameless in the fiasco of the offense, the offensive struggles are far from being completely him.