Steelers interim OC Matt Canada fired: ‘We failed him’
Eddie Faulkner has been on Pittsburgh’s staff since 2019 and is a close friend of fired offensive coordinator Matt Canada.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Matt Canada,” Faulkner said. “I first worked with him when he was at Northern Illinois back in 2011. It’s a little bittersweet because when you look back and you see everything that’s been said about him and his offense, we all–and I’m speaking on behalf of the offense when I tell this to staff–we all felt like we were a part of it. No one is absolving themselves of anything that happened in that regard, and we feel like we failed him.
“I got to say that because that’s what a real one would do. That’s a friend of mine, and that’s not going to change.”
Coach Mike Tomlin said earlier this week that he made the change because improvements to the offense weren’t “rapid enough or consistent enough” to proceed with Canada.
On Thursday, coach Mike Tomlin said there won’t be any drastic changes to the offense in the final seven games. “You can’t, we’re halfway through the season,” Tomlin said. “We need to stick with what we’ve been doing, put game plans together, see what our guys can do. We’ll continue to do that.”
Tomlin said that he chose Faulkner to coach the offense because of “his steady voice and demeanor” and “natural” communication in running the backs room.
“I grew up in a family where my mom was an educator,” Faulkner said. “That’s always been the goal for me, to be able to make a difference in people’s lives, to be involved with those people, and then football is just a byproduct of that,” he said.
Harris, who has been under Faulkner’s watchful eye since his arrival in 2021, declined to speak on Thursday. After Sunday’s loss in Cleveland, running back Najee Harris said he was “frustrated with the offense.”
“He and I are going to work real hard to be in lockstep with each other,” Faulkner said. “I know on game day, any playcaller wants to be able to be narrowly focused on what he needs to do. And I’m not going to interfere with that. But at the same time, we’re going to have enough conversations and tee ourselves up as well as we can, so when we go into that game atmosphere, we’re all on the same page when the chips start to kind of fall out.”
