Steelers considered a far worse alternative to firing Matt Canada before making right call

The city of Pittsburgh let out a noticeable collective cheer when Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin fired his offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Though Tomlin has become known for not making any coaching changes midseason and promoting/demoting instead of firing, Canada's failures with the team had become too deep to justify keeping him any longer.

Canada was let go after leading some of the lowest-performing offenses in the league the last two seasons.

It turns out, before the team made that decision, an alternative was considered: Benching Kenny Pickett.

The Steelers considered benching Kenny Pickett, ostensibly instead of firing Matt Canada

On the DVE Morning Show, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Gerry Dulac detailed the new information that the Steelers were considering benching Kenny Pickett after the devastating 13-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns (H/T Noah Strackbein).

"After the Cleveland game, there was some discussion that maybe a change needed to be made at the position because of the way [Pickett] had been struggling for those three games, right up until the mess in Cleveland," Dulac said. 

The Steelers offense has been bad, and it's impossible to say any one person was wholly to blame for it. Matt Canada was not solely responsible. Kenny Pickett was not solely responsible. All that said, it's far easier to go ahead and fire a coach or coordinator than it is to move on from a young quarterback drafted in recent years. The right decision here was to get out from the Canada cloud and see where things lie.

Dulac continued, adding that the decision to keep him in as the starter is entirely to isolate the Pickett variable. "They would like to see how he would have performed... without Matt Canada."

With Pickett now out with an ankle injury for a few weeks, it'll be some time before they can get a true assessment in on if Pickett is worth relying on as the starter.