Matt Canada is gone. Pittsburgh Steelers fans have rejoiced. What's next? More players and coaches could certainly move on, some before the end of the year if things go south, and some before the start of next season.
Steelers Depot made a good point about the future of a particular Steelers coach, Matt Tomsho, and the likelihood of whether or not he'll remain with the Steelers in 2024 and beyond.
A quick look at his job history would suggest he's unlikely to be with the team much longer. Tomsho currently serves as the team's quality control coach and the team website indicates he prepares video and does some light opponent scouting.
Tomsho, as Depot points out, has essentially tailed Canada throughout his career, serving as an assistant of sorts for Canada wherever he's landed. He's gone from Pitt to LSU to Maryland to the Steelers. The only job he's had that wasn't co-working with Canada was a DIII job in Wisconsin in 2019, when Canada took a year off from coaching in between stops.
Clearly, Canada and Tomsho are tied at the hip.
One would think that the only way Tomsho stays in Pittsburgh is if he's really impressed others in the organization -- mainly, Mike Tomlin -- and wants to stick around to make a name for himself without Canada by his side. Impossible to say with certainty at this point.
Why Mike Sullivan is calling plays despite not being interim offensive coordinator
Firing an offensive coordinator mid-season is entirely unideal, to be sure. So when the Steelers made the arguably necessary decision to part ways with Matt Canada recently, their backfilling of the role is entirely shoestring.
Even so, there was some skepticism around how head coach Mike Tomlin decided to fill Canada's responsibilities, with him naming running backs coach Eddie Faulkner the interim offensive coordinator, but giving quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan play-calling duties on game days.
That, essentially, amounts to the two men splitting duties, with Faulkner taking the big picture and Sullivan charged with putting it into play on Sundays. Why not give play-calling duties to Sullivan outright? Tomlin had this to say, H/T Steelers Depot, on his show recently as far as why they went this direction:
"He has experience in [play calling] in two NFL cities, New York and Tampa. And he's the guy that deals directly with Kenny, and so there's great fluidity there from a play-calling perspective in an effort to best put Kenny in position, particularly as it pertains to the passing game."
It makes sense.
Interestingly, Canada also said in the show that Sullivan is who Pickett has been communicating with, "a lot." That's a key detail considering at one point, Matt Canada was curiously promoted to spend more time working with Pickett, in an apparent last-ditch effort to try to get the Canada-Pickett experiment to work out.
Evidently, they liked what they saw from Pickett when he was working with Sullivan more directly.
It also provides one more crucial subtlety: The Steelers are still all-in on Pickett, and spending the rest of this year ostensibly hoping to get Pickett every opportunity he possibly could have to prove he should be the franchise's quarterback of the future. Going with a passing specialist to call plays instead of Faulkner, the rushing specialist, means they're betting on Pickett.
Diontae Johnson's future with the Steelers
Diontae Johnson was a name speculatively floated frequently around the NFL trade deadline, but the day came and went with Johnson remaining a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Johnson has been one of the more vocal critics of the Steelers offense under Matt Canada, and a clear possible beneficiary under a new regime.
But, will he even suit up in black and yellow under whoever takes over as offensive coordinator moving forward? It's worth questioning.
Johnson, weeks ago, had to be removed from a coach on the sideline in an altercation that got ostensibly physical. We've now also learned that Johnson and Minkah Fitzpatrick got into a physical locker room spat as well in the same game.
Johnson is under contract through next season and, on an expiring deal, could be a logical player for receiver-hungry teams to pursue. His targets and offensive involvement have dwindled despite his success rate at a career-high so far this year.
With the Steelers already making an acknowledgement that the offense isn't working, it may force the team to re-evaluate top-to-bottom. While the first thing the team will address is talent, these kinds of era switch-overs often materialize as times for teams to sell on players who have proven to be issues culturally in the locker room.
It's unclear how Johnson is viewed by his fellow teammates. Though it's easy to jump to the conclusion that he's a headache because of the altercations, there's a chance his teammates and coaches see it instead as passion gone wrong and can understand his frustration, hopeful to instead keep him around and more involved.
If Johnson's issue is a lack of involvement, though, don't expect it to change much straightaway. Ian Rapoport suggests the primary beneficiary will be George Pickens, not Johnson.
That said, if the Steelers are scoring and more importantly winning, it'll be hard to argue against the results.
