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Dolphins Interested in Matt Canada for Open OC Spot

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By Justin McGonigle www.SteelerNation.com The Steelers decided to part ways with offensive coordinator Randy Fitchner this morning, and a top candidate could be quarterback coach Matt Canada. But that’s if the Dolphins don’t pry him away from Pittsburgh first. According to NFL NETWORK’S Ian Rapport the Dolphins have an interest in Canada to replace Chan […]

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I think he was brought in to replace Fitchner from the get go

The Steelers have a history of bringing in a position coach they are interested in as a Coordinator then forcing the other guy out... it happens a lot.

Canada is a brilliant college OC... whether that translates or not we may see
 
madinsomniac said:
I think he was brought in to replace Fitchner from the get go

The Steelers have a history of bringing in a position coach they are interested in as a Coordinator then forcing the other guy out... it happens a lot.

Canada is a brilliant college OC... whether that translates or not we may see
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I don't know about brilliant.. the guy has never held a position with a college or team for longer than 3 years. If he was that good, he would have been retained and promoted.
 
Dolphins will hire him.
 
mdk2 said:
I don't know about brilliant.. the guy has never held a position with a college or team for longer than 3 years. If he was that good, he would have been retained and promoted.
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He is abrasive... see LSU... there is a long documented history of him rubbing head coaches and others the wrong way, but everything from the technical side of the game makes all the experts refer to him as brilliant...

He is a guy who will use motions and sets to get stuff open but he might not be Bens cup of tea cause it wont be sandbox stuff....
 
Fitchner leaving makes me think Ben is gone. After Haley it seemed like the Steelers let Roethlisberger pick his buddy to OC to keep everything smooth. It ended up Ben calling plays from the line like he likes to do and another first round exit for the Steelers from the playoffs. I personally feel the team will stiff arm Ben into retirement knowing he might have some left in the tank but not a lot. We try Rudolph for a season for a cheap deal and either he does enough to get tagged/signed or we move on from him and go after a FA and draft a guy in 2022.

The good and bad of Ben leaving is it might force the Steelers to evaluate Tomlin. It’s easy to go .500+ with a hall of fame QB. Hard to do with middle of the pack or worse QB’s like Cowher had to for most of his coaching career. If Ben retires and we have 2 bad seasons he’ll just not be renewed. But looking at Colbert, Tomlin and Ben they seemed handcuffed in a contractual sense. All three deals end after 2021. Maybe the plan is to start fresh after 2021 and they all comeback one more year.
 
Looks like Mr. Canada is going to get a hefty pay increase and some beachfront property in the very near future..
 
Canada is a good fit with Tua. Tua struggled this year under Chan Gallery’s more traditional passing attack. They obviously want to install more of a college scheme to take advantage of his running ability.
 
FordFairLane said:
The good and bad of Ben leaving is it might force the Steelers to evaluate Tomlin. It’s easy to go .500+ with a hall of fame QB. Hard to do with middle of the pack or worse QB’s like Cowher had to for most of his coaching career. If Ben retires and we have 2 bad seasons he’ll just not be renewed. But looking at Colbert, Tomlin and Ben they seemed handcuffed in a contractual sense. All three deals end after 2021. Maybe the plan is to start fresh after 2021 and they all comeback one more year.
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Ford, you know well enough Cowher didn't care about the QB position 13 of the 15 years he was in Pitt. His bread and butter on offense was his rushing attack. His offense was a perennial top 5 in rushing. I think he may have had only one or two years outside of the top 10 Rushing offenses during his tenure, and he had Bettis for 10 of those years and Parker for 3 for those rushing attacks. I know we were almost last in rushing that one year with the Tommy Gun offense. His philosophy was always attacking Defense and ball control offense. He wanted game managers for QBs. Even with Ben during his first two years they lead with a ball control offense including the SB XL run. With the exception of Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, all his offenses were based on the Ron Ernhardt scheme...ball control rushing with play action. So Cowher may not have had a pure franchise QB, but he sure had a franchise RB. Which is the opposite of Tomlin, has had a franchise QB, but never a franchise RB.
 
Ike Kelly said:
Ford, you know well enough Cowher didn't care about the QB position 13 of the 15 years he was in Pitt. His bread and butter on offense was his rushing attack. His offense was a perennial top 5 in rushing. I think he may have had only one or two years outside of the top 10 Rushing offenses during his tenure, and he had Bettis for 10 of those years and Parker for 3 for those rushing attacks. I know we were almost last in rushing that one year with the Tommy Gun offense. His philosophy was always attacking Defense and ball control offense. He wanted game managers for QBs. Even with Ben during his first two years they lead with a ball control offense including the SB XL run. With the exception of Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, all his offenses were based on the Ron Ernhardt scheme...ball control rushing with play action. So Cowher may not have had a pure franchise QB, but he sure had a franchise RB. Which is the opposite of Tomlin, has had a franchise QB, but never a franchise RB.
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To be fair, LB WAS a franchise back before he quit on the team and left all that moolah on the table.
It's interesting to me that folks that want Ben back seem to fall into the "Be careful what you ask for" camp and folks that aren't ready to move on from Tomlin seem to fall into the "Be careful what you ask for" camp. Same camp. Different tribes.
 
SteelBuckeye said:
To be fair, LB WAS a franchise back before he quit on the team and left all that moolah on the table.
It's interesting to me that folks that want Ben back seem to fall into the "Be careful what you ask for" camp and folks that aren't ready to move on from Tomlin seem to fall into the "Be careful what you ask for" camp. Same camp. Different tribes.
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If Bell had done the smart thing, yeah, he would have been a franchise RB Buckeye. Unfortunately, he didn't and we really didn't get a comparable replacement. Conner could have been, but man he sure was injury prone. Not Duce Staley level, but enough that we really have had no stable rushing offense since 2017.
 
Ike Kelly said:
Ford, you know well enough Cowher didn't care about the QB position 13 of the 15 years he was in Pitt. His bread and butter on offense was his rushing attack. His offense was a perennial top 5 in rushing. I think he may have had only one or two years outside of the top 10 Rushing offenses during his tenure, and he had Bettis for 10 of those years and Parker for 3 for those rushing attacks. I know we were almost last in rushing that one year with the Tommy Gun offense. His philosophy was always attacking Defense and ball control offense. He wanted game managers for QBs. Even with Ben during his first two years they lead with a ball control offense including the SB XL run. With the exception of Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, all his offenses were based on the Ron Ernhardt scheme...ball control rushing with play action. So Cowher may not have had a pure franchise QB, but he sure had a franchise RB. Which is the opposite of Tomlin, has had a franchise QB, but never a franchise RB.
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Cowher’s teams were run first and play action type offenses. But to be fair that was an entirely different NFL than today. He was a little ahead of his time drafting Kordell Stewart but Kordell couldn’t read a defense to save his life and was always a see then react player. He was light years ahead of Lamar in both but unlike Lamar we kept trying to fit the square peg in the round hole.
Cowher hung out way too long in hopes the slash experiment would work. I thought surely after 2000 we’d take Drew Brees in the 2001 draft but Cowher stuck to his guns on Stewart for 2+ seasons longer. Imagine how many Super Bowls we might have won with Brees?

Anyways, yes Cowhers tutelage from Marty definitely shown through and his need for a power run game and defense is why we won so many regular season games. But in thr end he had a young Ben Roethlisberger for 3 years and the last one Ben got hit by a car and wasn’t physically himself. If he’d hung on for another 5-10 years I still believe we’d of won several more Super Bowls. My opinion that’s all.
 
Don’t know enough about Canada to say ya or na... but I would think steelers need someone stable not really due to be a HC anytime soon maybe like Jim Everett. Not big fan of ex-dungy coaches... don’t get me wrong I love the ex-steeler in tony and he’s a great guy but we need some smack in our attack. Bring back the steeler trap!!... it’s a trap!! We need a coach that can concentrate the offense on a Balanced attack and is player independent. Players really come and go now you can’t get dependent on them. I like gase some jets players didn’t... that’s a good sign lol half the Steelers wanted to quit on Noll lol and I’m sure cowher wasn’t popular with the players until they won. Takes time and sweat make a winner. We need a strong hand on the offense tomlin showed he could work and get results with good coaches like munch. We need someone up to the task randy wasn’t that guy. His three years here we were last or close to it in running. Gase and jets were last this year but a rookie left tackle and 4 free agents on the line and frank gore the running back you can’t expect much lol hell I didn’t no frank gore was still alive lol
 
FordFairLane said:
Fitchner leaving makes me think Ben is gone. After Haley it seemed like the Steelers let Roethlisberger pick his buddy to OC to keep everything smooth. It ended up Ben calling plays from the line like he likes to do and another first round exit for the Steelers from the playoffs. I personally feel the team will stiff arm Ben into retirement knowing he might have some left in the tank but not a lot. We try Rudolph for a season for a cheap deal and either he does enough to get tagged/signed or we move on from him and go after a FA and draft a guy in 2022.

The good and bad of Ben leaving is it might force the Steelers to evaluate Tomlin. It’s easy to go .500+ with a hall of fame QB. Hard to do with middle of the pack or worse QB’s like Cowher had to for most of his coaching career. If Ben retires and we have 2 bad seasons he’ll just not be renewed. But looking at Colbert, Tomlin and Ben they seemed handcuffed in a contractual sense. All three deals end after 2021. Maybe the plan is to start fresh after 2021 and they all comeback one more year.
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There is always that chance that BEN looked in a mirror and realized the way things were wasn't working. BEN may be way more open to change to get that championship he so desires. I'm not saying he will change everything because an O'l dog can only learn / change so much. A modified version of BEN with a new OC may be acceptable to him.

If a new hire is in store I think the FO / coach have BEN meet him but just to see how they get along prior to hiring. I don't think that will determine hire because I'm pretty sure everyone is looking past BEN to the future but hope new hire & BEN can work in unison.




Salute the nation
 
Ike Kelly said:
Ford, you know well enough Cowher didn't care about the QB position 13 of the 15 years he was in Pitt. His bread and butter on offense was his rushing attack. His offense was a perennial top 5 in rushing. I think he may have had only one or two years outside of the top 10 Rushing offenses during his tenure, and he had Bettis for 10 of those years and Parker for 3 for those rushing attacks. I know we were almost last in rushing that one year with the Tommy Gun offense. His philosophy was always attacking Defense and ball control offense. He wanted game managers for QBs. Even with Ben during his first two years they lead with a ball control offense including the SB XL run. With the exception of Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, all his offenses were based on the Ron Ernhardt scheme...ball control rushing with play action. So Cowher may not have had a pure franchise QB, but he sure had a franchise RB. Which is the opposite of Tomlin, has had a franchise QB, but never a franchise RB.
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Leveon bell was a franchise RB, and our offense was perennially top 5 through that era... he also had willie parker till he ran his legs off and wasted a top pick on Mendenhall.... so its not like he doesn’t care about the run game... he started out in 07 as a run first guy till he figured out Ben was great...

Cowhers problem was he didn’t adjust... he ran into the same playoff issues Tomlin does... teams spend more time gameplanning for your weaknesses and changing up what they do... Cowher just went into games and if his talent and scheme could overwhelm you he won... martyball at its finest....

Imposing your will is a football philosophy for lunkheaded morons... when all is said and done Tomlin will be our third Hof coach in a row and yet the only really great head coach we've ever had was noll...
 
SteelerFan448 said:
I just posted it in another thread, but there is absolutely zero shakeup with the team if the Steelers promote Matt Canada to OC.
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I disagree with that... Arians was nothing like whiz... whiz had different philosophies different then Mularkey, Mularkey was a total overhaul from Gilbride, like absolutely nothing was the same...

The scenario that most lines up with this was the Gailey/Erhardt Dynamic... they absolutely brought Gailey in as a position coach to try to add to their passing game... erhardt was too one dimensional... i mean he was great at planning a run game, but he knew **** **** about how to use a modern wr set back then... the only difference was mid 95 when the team was struggling with a 3-4 record, and the defense waSnt carrying them due to injuries, they used Gaileys system to open things up and rode the Passing of Odonnel to the super bowl then forced Erhardt into retirement after the season...


The Steelers way is to bring in a guy, acclimate them for a bit, then let them take Over with some hands on knowledge of what their personnel strengths and weaknesses are... Haley really is the only cold hire that ever worked at OC... and that was still not ideal...

So internal promotions:
Tom moore- offense stayed the same

Chan gailey- installed his trademark 3wr set offense in 95, and he was the primary playcaller half that season, so technically it was continuing, but he totally overhauled the Erhardt offense....

Mike Mularkey- 100% different from Gilbrides offense

Ken Wisenhunt- Simular to mularkey, but not tge same.. lots more motion and scheme structure
Bruce Arians- very different from Whiz... Raideresque deep passing offense
Randy Fitchner - totally different from haley... way too short and conservative


Outside hires
Joe Walton- tried to install fancy offensive scheme and failed
Ron Erhardt-Went the opposite direction of too run first... but great at the run... couldn’t utilize wrs
Ray Sherman - totally changed Gailey s offense and tried to use Kordell as a pocket passer
Kevin Gilbride - see joe walton but with kordell
Todd Haley- Overhauled and fixed our run game and installed a short passing game... but an *******. Got conservative around the goal line
 
Let’s not forget Canada was a part of the offensive staff this year. Not blaming him for our short comings on that side of the ball but not sure if he brought anything to the table either. I personally would like to look elsewhere.
 
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Atlsteelers said:
Let’s not forget Canada was a part of the offensive staff this year. Not blaming him for our short comings on that side of the ball but not sure if he brought anything to the table either. Impersonally would like to look elsewhere.
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Again, that kind of thinking is severely flawed and it shows throughout history that the grass is greener philosophies fail more than work... Canada was the qb coach and Rudolph looked better in that last game... but regardless

How a player played does not reflect on how well of a position coach they will be
A position coach doesn’t reflect on how that coach will do as a coordinator
A coordinator is a different set of skills from a head coach... you can be a marvelous Oc or Dc and a cruddy head coach and vice versa
A great head coach may have No ability to be a GM


Different skiilsets and mental requirements for each position...

What we need is an innovative, strategic OC capable of building a scheme to fit the talent and adjusting gameplans to match the opponents...,

Canada was great at that in college.. that doesn’t mean he will be here but we dabbled in some of his stuff this year then abandoned everything but the sweeps after a couple weeks...
the motions and formations that opened up the tun game a little earlier were just discarded and im not sure why.. I think Randy just was scared to death to go deep and suspect he was building schemes and calling games super conservative and i think he knew if we utilized Canadas scheme and won , he was out... tge only hope he had oF being retained was to win with his dink and dunk
 
madinsomniac said:
Again, that kind of thinking is severely flawed and it shows throughout history that the grass is greener philosophies fail more than work... Canada was the qb coach and Rudolph looked better in that last game... but regardless

How a player played does not reflect on how well of a position coach they will be
A position coach doesn’t reflect on how that coach will do as a coordinator
A coordinator is a different set of skills from a head coach... you can be a marvelous Oc or Dc and a cruddy head coach and vice versa
A great head coach may have No ability to be a GM


Different skiilsets and mental requirements for each position...

What we need is an innovative, strategic OC capable of building a scheme to fit the talent and adjusting gameplans to match the opponents...,

Canada was great at that in college.. that doesn’t mean he will be here but we dabbled in some of his stuff this year then abandoned everything but the sweeps after a couple weeks...
the motions and formations that opened up the tun game a little earlier were just discarded and im not sure why.. I think Randy just was scared to death to go deep and suspect he was building schemes and calling games super conservative and i think he knew if we utilized Canadas scheme and won , he was out... tge only hope he had oF being retained was to win with his dink and dunk
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I hear everything you are saying but also must HOLD Coach Tomlin to a degree of accountability. Coach Tomlin signed off on game plans / game adjustment & NON-adjustment / called plays as well. Whoever ends up at OC will still be influenced from Coach Tomlin and we can only hope Tomlin opens upo some and willing to accept game plans / risky plays / in game adjustments / etc.. I think the FO has instilled this "change" into everyone.




Salute the nation
 
Drink IRON City said:
I hear everything you are saying but also must HOLD Coach Tomlin to a degree of accountability. Coach Tomlin signed off on game plans / game adjustment & NON-adjustment / called plays as well. Whoever ends up at OC will still be influenced from Coach Tomlin and we can only hope Tomlin opens upo some and willing to accept game plans / risky plays / in game adjustments / etc.. I think the FO has instilled this "change" into everyone.




Salute the nation
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The quickest way to fix this offense is hit on the first two draft picks and get an OC and tell Tomlin to stay the **** out of the way and let that OC do his thing.
 
madinsomniac said:
He is abrasive... see LSU... there is a long documented history of him rubbing head coaches and others the wrong way, but everything from the technical side of the game makes all the experts refer to him as brilliant...

He is a guy who will use motions and sets to get stuff open but he might not be Bens cup of tea cause it wont be sandbox stuff....
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is what I'm hearing from my SEC contacts (particularly LSU alum). If that's the case - just dust off the rolodex and bring back Coach Haley...
 
FordFairLane said:
Fitchner leaving makes me think Ben is gone. After Haley it seemed like the Steelers let Roethlisberger pick his buddy to OC to keep everything smooth. It ended up Ben calling plays from the line like he likes to do and another first round exit for the Steelers from the playoffs. I personally feel the team will stiff arm Ben into retirement knowing he might have some left in the tank but not a lot. We try Rudolph for a season for a cheap deal and either he does enough to get tagged/signed or we move on from him and go after a FA and draft a guy in 2022.

The good and bad of Ben leaving is it might force the Steelers to evaluate Tomlin. It’s easy to go .500+ with a hall of fame QB. Hard to do with middle of the pack or worse QB’s like Cowher had to for most of his coaching career. If Ben retires and we have 2 bad seasons he’ll just not be renewed. But looking at Colbert, Tomlin and Ben they seemed handcuffed in a contractual sense. All three deals end after 2021. Maybe the plan is to start fresh after 2021 and they all comeback one more year.
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Coryea said:
The quickest way to fix this offense is hit on the first two draft picks and get an OC and tell Tomlin to stay the **** out of the way and let that OC do his thing.
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I'm calling B-I-N-G-O on this.

Regardless of the negativity around Coach Tomlin, the team's overall draft results have been astonishing. My Bama homerism are about to shine, but if we can SOMEHOW pick up Najee Harris at 1/24 and then come back and get Landon Dickerson at C. That's the start of something special. Yes, we'll still need a LT and possibly another OG but it's a great start...
 
bermudasteel said:
I'm calling B-I-N-G-O on this.

Regardless of the negativity around Coach Tomlin, the team's overall draft results have been astonishing. My Bama homerism are about to shine, but if we can SOMEHOW pick up Najee Harris at 1/24 and then come back and get Landon Dickerson at C. That's the start of something special. Yes, we'll still need a LT and possibly another OG but it's a great start...
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Dickerson and Dotson is a scary duo. I've seen alot of mocks (it's early) that have Dickerson going 3rd or 4th round???
 
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