Mike Tomlin admits that change is needed within his Pittsburgh Steelers. But the move that many in the fan base have been asking for is not going to happen. At least not now.
Tomlin was asked Wednesday, as the team sets to depart of its bye week, if he anticipates any sort of significant changes as he evaluates his team, currently sitting at 2-6.
"I don't know what you determined to be significant," he responded. "I know that we're open to doing whatever is required for us to be better, and we've got some planning ahead, particularly as it pertains to our next matchup. So, no, I'm not excluding anything that you might determine to be significant."
The most significant move, of course, would be a change in the offensive coordinator position. Pittsburgh's offense, under Matt Canada, has been among the league's worst all season.
Canada, who is in his second year as the offensive coordinator and third season with the Steelers overall, has overseen an offense that has managed to score over 20 points ini regulation just five times in his 26 games.
Because of the results, and the public clamoring for a change to the position, Tomlin was then asked directly if he will make a change to any coaching positions during the time off.
"No," he replied, bluntly.
So, according to Tomlin, Canada is staying, and will continue to work with Steelers rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett and the rest of the offense.
Even though he is backing his current offensive coordinator, he does acknowledge that they've already taken a hard look at this team, in an effort to turn around a season that is tracking towards being the worst in decades.
"We had a couple days of fundamental work in all three phases and have been doing some things behind the scenes in terms of the evaluation of our schematics and the quality of our work," Tomlin said. "And hopefully we take the lessons learned and we still, as a staff, even though the film work is done, we still have some more work days ahead of us in the bye week."
The question is, if they are keeping the coordinator, what exactly went on in that internal assessment of the schemes and what changes will come as a result? And is this team, particularly the offense, getting a stiffer analysis than previous years.?
"I haven't compared it to other seasons because a lot of the variables are relative to the now, the tools that we have to work with our personnel and the challenges and so forth," Tomlin said. "Procedurally, it's probably similar, but I'm really just focused on the variables here in 2022."
