PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – They've drafted it, we just haven't seen a lot of it. There have been a few glimpses this year, but how does Matt Canada get more speed out of his offense?
"You bring Diontae back, Anthony McFarland, you got George (Pickens) out there and with Diontae (Johnson) and Pat (Freiermuth) back we got more weapons that you have to respect down the field," the Steelers offensive coordinator explained on Thursday. "We've got some guys that we think can run and then you've got Allen (Robinson) inside. Getting some guys back, gets us back to our full arsenal of what we think we can do or be on offense."
"Not necessarily play differences, but certainly a difference in how they have to adapt in who we got out there. I think those guys draw some attention."
Calvin Austin is your fastest player, against the Ravens he had no catches on one target. The previous game against Houston only three catches for 24 yards. Jaylen Warren is another explosive option, he had only 14 touches against Houston and 12 against Baltimore.
Canada, along with quarterback Kenny Pickett, believe the Johnson will open up the outside game and Freiermuth is a threat vertically as we saw in the preseason. They had their full compliment of players against the Niners, at least for a half, and couldn't find that speed.
This could be different having had the week off to self-scout along with getting some playmakers back. Najee Harris recognized they need to get the ball to those players, even though that might include fewer touches for him. Canada praised Harris for putting in the effort to bring some ideas to the table that could be used this week. He said he is 'wide open' to ideas from players, not that there aren't millions of suggestions on-line if he's looking for other recommendations.
The ideas Harris brought is nothing revolutionary, according to Canada (not that he wanted to divulge them for competitive reasons). They are all trying to pull in the same direction to attempt to get to where they think this offense can be this year.
"Najee and I met last year after the bye and looked at all his runs and what we can do better," Canada said. "It's goes with Najee, the quarterback or anything else, all of the focus goes there, but there are a lot of pieces to it. There are no questions about Najee's desire to win, desire to be great, desire to be a leader, desire to be on the same page."
Can they get consistent enough play from all of the pieces to not only establish some consistency, but take advantage of the speed of the second-year players? What action will this talk turn into?
