Unlike continuity at head coach, Steelers have checkered history with offensive coordinators
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A franchise that is widely lauded for having three head coaches over the past 54 years, the Pittsburgh Steelers are on their third offensive coordinator over the past 34 months after the Tuesday firing of Matt Canada.
Canada’s tenure lasted 44 games. Believe it or not, that’s only the fifth-shortest stint for a Steelers offensive coordinator since they first formally named one in 1983. Of the 12 men who have served as Steelers’ OC over the past 41 seasons, Canada joins seven others in lasting no longer than three seasons.
But Chan Gailey (1996-97), Mike Mularkey (2001-03) and Ken Whisenhunt (2004-06) were not fired. They left for head-coaching gigs.
Older Steelers fans might recoil in disgust at some of the names that Canada joins as those fired by the team after three or fewer seasons of calling plays: Joe Walton (1990-91), Ray Sherman (one-and-done in 1998), Kevin Gilbride (1999-2000) and Randy Fichtner, the latter of which was Canada’s predecessor.
Though the official releases from the team at times have included terminology such as “retirement” or “resignation,” Steelers offensive coordinators who were let go like Canada include Tom Moore (1983-89), Ron Erhardt (1992-95), Bruce Arians (2007-11) and Todd Haley (2012-17).
Per the Steelers in a recent story, Moore feared he would be fired and left to take the OC job with the Minnesota Vikings.
Arians’ departure famously was termed a retirement, but he quickly took a job calling plays for the Indianapolis Colts, and when head coach Chuck Pagano took a leave while battling leukemia, Arians took over as head coach and won the NFL’s coach of the year award. Arians would serve as an NFL head coach for eight more seasons, winning the Super Bowl with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in February 2021.
Arians called the plays for two Steelers teams that advanced to the Super Bowl. They won it for the 2008 season but lost in the title game two years later. Of all Steelers offensive coordinators, per pro-football-history.com, the .688 team win percentage Arians presided over ranks second best to Whisenhunt (.708).
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But Arians’ Steelers teams were based largely on defense. They finished in the top 10 of yardage or points only once each with Arians as OC, falling to 21st in total offense during his final season.
Based on yards per game alone, Haley had the best tenure of any Steelers offensive coordinator. During each of the final four of Haley’s six seasons, the Steelers were among the NFL’s top 10 in yards and points.
Though they could claim that, too, in Fichtner’s 2018 debut season as play-caller, the Steelers have been bottom-10 in the NFL in total offense in every season since.
Canada’s high-water marks of 23rd in yardage and 21st in points are reminiscent of the two-year stints of Gilbride (his best season was 22nd in yards and 17th in points) and Walton (fired after No. 20 showing in yards and No. 17 in points in what was then a 28-team league).
Canada’s unpopularity among Steelers fans rivaled that in the pre-social media age of the ire directed at Gilbride and Walton. But arguably no Steelers offensive coordinator was more vilified than Sherman.
Sherman took over the year after Gailey had helped mold Kordell Stewart into a budding NFL star, the Steelers reached the AFC championship game and the offense was among the top seven in the league in points and yards. But whether it was his fault or not, Sherman presided over play-calling as the team fell to a 7-9 record, a No. 25-ranked offense (28th in points) and a regression of Stewart.
Moore, in 1983, was promoted to coordinator after a stint on the staff during an era in which quarterback Terry Bradshaw had called plays and head coach Chuck Noll was involved in game-planning. Moore had the unfortunate timing of presiding over the offense in an era the Super Steelers declined. Though his offenses twice finished among the league’s top 10, during Moore’s final season the Steelers finished last in total offense, even if they advanced to the playoffs.
Though Erhardt helped guide a franchise renaissance as Bill Cowher’s first coordinator, Cowher began to lean more on then-receivers coach Gailey by the time the Steelers played in Super Bowl XXX in January 2006. That made it natural to move on from Erhardt.
Gailey went on to be a head coach of two NFL teams and one college team in addition to calling plays for three other NFL teams.
Mularkey and Whisenhunt similarly performed well enough as Steelers OC to buoy each to a long and varied career as a head coach and coordinator for several other NFL teams. Whisenhunt called the plays for the Steelers’ Super Bowl XL champions during a 2005 season in which the Steelers ranked ninth in the NFL in points.
Mularkey presided over one of the Steelers’ best offenses over the past four decades: In 2001, Stewart was an MVP candidate while the Steelers went 13-3 and made it to the AFC title game. The offense ranked third in yards and seventh in points that season. Since 1979, only Haley in 2015 (third and fourth, respectively) has called plays for a season in which the Steelers ranked that high in both.
The Steelers can only hope that the new tandem of Eddie Faulkner and Mike Sullivan can rival those types of results.
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