Steelers turn up heat on Matt Canada with latest hire

The Steelers may be making a statement with their latest coaching hire, perhaps pushing offensive coordinator Matt Canada closer and closer to the cliff.

In their first addition to the offensive coaching staff, the Pittsburgh Steelers hired former Arizona State offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas to be an assistant coach.

Thomas boasts over 20 years of coaching experience mostly centralized at the college level, working at UNLV, Baylor, and Temple. He also enjoyed a short stint as the Atlanta Falcons head coach from 2012 to 2014 and helped coach Matt Ryan — he’ll now turn his efforts to a struggling offensive squad in the Steelers, which suffered from one of the least efficient passing games in 2022.

2022 first-rounder Kenny Pickett should benefit from another year under OC Matt Canada and head coach Mike Tomlin, and adding an offensive guru like Thomas should only increase Pickett’s chances of success.

Any kind of coaching hire tends to have a rippling effect within franchises, and even though it’s much too early to tell, Thomas’ hire could be setting the franchise’s Matt Canada succession plan in motion.

Steelers hire former Arizona State OC Glenn Thomas to coach under Matt Canada

Is Canada on the hot seat right now? Not necessarily. He’s been with the Steelers for the last three years and served as offensive coordinator for the last two, and navigating the tricky transition from Big Ben to a rookie couldn’t have been easy.

If someone were to take Canada’s job in the future, it may very likely be an in-house promotion, and that’s where Thomas would step in.

For 2023, Canada’s job is probably safe. Should Canada lead the Steelers’ offense to another 200-passing-yards-per-game and 12-total-passing-touchdowns kind of season, though, many fans could be clamoring for a new change of direction.

Thomas not only has experience, but he has experience at the helm of winning programs. During his stint at Temple University, he helped lead the team to back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time in program history.

After trudging their way to nine hard-fought wins last year, getting 10 wins in 2023 feels like an achievable feat even in the extra-competitive AFC North. We’ll see what Canada will come up with in his third (and possibly final?) season as offensive coordinator.