With each passing week, the fire Matt Canada chants spread further. They have shown up at pro wrestling, a Penguins game, and elsewhere since beginning during Monday Night Football at Acrisure Stadium. Now, they have spread to college football during the Pat McAfee Show, which hosted a special Friday edition in Columbus, Ohio, on the campus of Ohio State University. As they started a segment on the Steelers, more ‘Fire Canada’ chants broke out among the crowd.
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Pittsburgh’s offense has played below the lie. There’s no question about that. But the Steelers will stick by Matt Canada for most of the season. No matter how questionable a decision, Pittsburgh seems to be in this with Canada through the thick and thin. Now, Pittsburgh has to round itself out of the bye week as they hope they can find some success. Canada seemed optimistic they could repeat their post-bye performance from last season, where they went 7-2 down the stretch and boasted one of the NFL’s best-rushing offenses in the NFL.
Canada’s offense has averaged a cumulative -0.31 EPA/Play for the season. While that metric isn’t perfect, it does showcase that Canada has struggled to get his offense going throughout the season. The team has by far the most three-and-outs by percentage in the league, topping out at 47 percent. Pittsburgh’s not just getting mashed by defenses, but they can not sustain drives. It is a concerning trend for Matt Canada, and the team needs to find something they can latch onto. They talked about minor tweaks they made during the bye week, which required to produce fruitful effects on the offense.
Specifically, seven NFL offensive coordinators have been fired in the middle of the season over the last six years. The earliest was in 2017, when the Cincinnati Bengals canned Ken Zampese after just two games. The latest was in 2018 when the Minnesota Vikings let John DeFilippo go after a Week 14 loss. But that does seem to be the direction that the Steelers will go with Canada.