Good morning, everybody. Today is Thursday, July 6th. Thank you for making me a part of your morning in this episode of first thoughts looking at the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And if you're a Steelers fan hearing a three to four minute episode this morning about Matt Canada might make your skin crawl a little bit considering how people in Pittsburgh speak about the offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But there's an interesting divide that we have got a first rose seat to the last couple weeks in the media as OTAs have come up in Canada has been doing the media rounds.

And so there was a radio show in Pittsburgh that Matt Canada went on and he was asked to describe what the plans were for the offense in 2023.

And there was a weird response to caught people off guard where Matt Canada the offensive coordinator said it's not like I'm coming in here and deciding what the offensive plan is.

And the host was thrown off he goes what do you mean you're the offensive coordinator and it went into this bit of a ramble from Canada where he was saying that the plan for what the offense is going to be comes from an organizational plan.

He said he's not coming in and deciding what it is there's a plan from the owner Art Rooney and the coach Mike Tomlin.

And so if we think back two seasons ago to when Matt Canada was hired everything that he said coming into the organization was about creativity and this modern offensive plan when he was really praised for it.

A lot of people thought highly of the switch from Fickner to Matt Canada at office of coordinator and then we haven't seen any of that translate on the field.

Now when you hear Canada go on the radio and talk about how it really isn't him by the sounds of it that's getting to dictate this offense.

And it's a really weird comment for him to have especially when it's not an offensive dominated coach like a McVeigh or a Shanahan who has full control of the offense.

And so now you take a step back and you think about the Pittsburgh Steelers and what's going on last year they were criticized intensively because of the lack of creativity the constant jet sweeps the conservative play calling the run after run after run after run.

That was unsuccessful everyone was taking jobs at this offense but if there's this directive that is coming from ownership and Tomlin to be conservative it's likely because they really strongly believe in what the Steelers have on defense on the field.

And so the Steelers by the sounds of it have been in this spot where it's been intentional to have this play calling as conservative and vanilla as it's been perhaps not to make mistakes because they want their defense to make games competitive late in the fourth quarter and then they have that chance to win it.

And so as I sit here thinking about what the Steelers could be going into 2023 the obvious article that pops up is this one where Canada again a couple weeks ago was speaking about what the Steelers offense is going to be in 2023.

And he said I think the identity was very clear in the last nine games of last season we ran the ball very well we were physical you saw who we drafted who we acquired.

I don't think there's any question about what our identity is going to be we want to run the football we want to be physical we want to be a good team that throws the ball down the field when we know we can take advantage of what the defense is giving us I think our identity has been well known and we are going to stay where we are at going into 2023.

So there's this clear emphasis from the Steelers on running the football and I think it's easy to point at this team and any team that has this approach and is announcing as such and there's proof that they're going to do that and say that this is an easy team to criticize and an easy offense to criticize.

But to me this extra piece of context is very interesting where it now goes into this final season where Canada is in his last year of the contract.

So it didn't make sense to get rid of him it also didn't make sense to get rid of him going into this year because it would mean another offensive coordinator for pick it who is just getting acclimated to everything within the league and all these offensive pieces.

And so I think there's going to be another case in 2023 where the Steelers are going to do everything they can to be close and competitive in games going into the fourth quarter from a conservative play calling standpoint to give them that sort of coin flip opportunity

to go on a run and stack up some wins like they did at the end of last season despite not having this super aggressive mentality.

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