On the most recent episode of the Steelers Stat Geek podcast, I was asked to look at the numbers for Steelers offensive coordinators. Although I was only tasked to go back through the Bill Cowher era, I went all the way back to 1983 and Tom Moore who was the first official offensive coordinator for the Steelers.

To look at the numbers, first it needed to be established what numbers were being tracked. For each person I listed the years they were coordinator, the regular season games, the Steelers regular-season record during that time, the win percentage based on that record, and the Steelers postseason record during each coordinator’s timeframe.

After gathering this basic information, I started to look at different statistics. Where it was appropriate, I looked at each value per game coached in order to have comparable data. For example, when I looked at the Steelers total yards gained during the years of a specific coordinator, I divided by the number of games played. Additionally, I looked at where these numbers ranked in the NFL during that time period. The statistical categories were yards per game, yards per play, points per game, touchdowns per game, and third down conversion percentage. While I wanted to be able to look at red zone efficiency for each offensive coordinator, I simply couldn’t find a way to compile the data accurately.

To explain something else from the data below, I only have the first two seasons for Matt Canada on this chart when it comes to the 5 statistical categories and rankings. The third season, which will be shown later with the difference of Matt Canada versus the interim offense of coordinators, would only bring his values down even more. This is important to keep in mind. Additionally, some color codes have been used where red is the worst three values and green is the top three values per category.

Looking at The ranks, it is important to remember that for offensive coordinators Tom Moore and Joe Walton there were only 28 NFL teams. For Ron Earhardt, Chan Gailey, and Ray Sherman, there were 30 teams. Kevin Gilbride had 31 NFL teams during his time as offensive coordinator with the Steelers while those from Mike Mularkey on all were dealing with 32 NFL teams.

For those who know their Steelers history, the standard of poor offensive output under a coordinator is Ray Sherman in 1998. By the end of the season, Bill Cowher, a defensive head coach, took over playcalling. While Sherman was, in essence, fired following the season, technically he resigned. But even looking at the Ray Sherman era, particularly when it comes to NFL ranks, it shows that Matt Canada was right along the same lines in his first two years with the Steelers.

Here is a comparison directly of Sherman’s single season a 1998 compared to Canada‘s first two seasons of 2021 and 2022:

Another thing to keep in mind is how much the NFL has changed for more potent offenses in recent years. Although the Steelers offense under Matt Canada averaged more than 30 yards more per game then under Ray Sherman, they basically placed the same in the NFL due to increased numbers in today’s game. This is just one example that can be seen numerous times through the first graphic above showing all the offensive coordinator‘s.

I also found it ironic that the two least effective offensive coordinator‘s on the list in Ray Sherman and Matt Canada actually were not terrible when it came to their NFL rank for third-down conversion percentage. While this is an important statistic, it might be that the Steelers converted more third downs simply because they reached third down more often because of an ineffective offense. While I do not have those numbers at this time, that is an interesting question I hope to answer in the future.

The one season that still remains is 2023 in which the Steelers had a split season between Matt Canada being the offensive coordinator and the combination of Eddie Faulkner as OC and Mike Sullivan as the play caller. Here is the breakdown comparing the 10 games under Canada to the seven games under the interim offensive coordinator. The ranks are compared to all other NFL teams over their first 10 games and their last seven games regardless of which week of the season they fell. Additionally, the color coding goes to show where these numbers would have fallen in the top three or the bottom three compared to the original graphic.

So if I were able to accurately put together the NFL rankings through roughly 2.5 seasons with Matt Canada, it would be even worse than the data originally shared comparing him to the other OCs. Based just on the data from two seasons, it’s almost inexcusable that Canada was retained to start the third season.

I know it seems like I’m piling on Matt Canada. What does talking about the ineptitude of a coach who is no longer with the team benefit things going forward?

The whole reason the question was posed to me in the podcast was to look at there being hope for the future. Was it Matt Canada that was more of the problem? While we will not get a pure answer for this until we have more data from the 2024 season, the numbers that were split in 2023 appear to be so.

But are the Steelers in a better situation?

Just for fun, I included Arthur Smith’s numbers for the same categories from his two seasons as offensive coordinator in Tennessee in 2019 and 2020. Just like I did with 2023, the numbers are color-coded to if they would have fit in either the top three or bottom three compared to the other Steelers coordinators.

As the number show, Arthur Smith’s statistics in these categories blow the other Steelers coordinators out of the water. While it was a different situation with a different franchise, at least there is hope that Smith can find the same success in Pittsburgh.