Two Important Pittsburgh Steelers Players Are Fired for Not Supporting the……..

Steelers players react to firing of Matt Canada: ‘It’s sad. He’s a great guy’

Just like coach Mike Tomlin said they did in the hours after firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada on Tuesday morning, most Pittsburgh Steelers players received the news the same way many fans did.

“I found out,” tight end Pat Freiermuth said, “on social media.”

Freiermuth, first and foremost, reacted more on a personal level than as a professional in regards to the dismissal of his boss.

“I’m not going to, like, cheer for it. It’s sad,” Freiermuth said prior to practice Wednesday. “He’s a great guy. Me and Canada had a great relationship, and obviously you never going to celebrate someone losing their job. He has a great family, a great guy. So it’s definitely sad, but we have to keep pushing forward and keep going with a big division game coming up.”

Coming off a 13-10 road loss at the Cleveland Browns in which the offense was so inert it compelled Tomlin to action, the Steelers on Sunday play at their other Ohio-based AFC North rival in meeting the Cincinnati Bengals.

.@pat_fry5 interrupted the question before it was done asking about Kenny Pickett’s struggles:

“Full confidence in Kenny, full confidence in everyone in this offense to get this going.” https://t.co/TdgGiWdQkD

“Obviously (Canada’s firing) happened, but one thing isn’t gonna change (the offense’s struggles),” veteran receiver Allen Robinson said. “For us as a collective and as individuals, it’s going to take every effort.

“Everybody is going to have to come together and push this thing forward.”

Robinson is the lone skill-position player on the Steelers offense to have experience in navigating an in-season change at coordinator. During his third year in the NFL in 2016, the Jacksonville Jaguars replaced Greg Olson with Nathaniel Hackett.

For the Steelers, it’s running backs coach Eddie Faulkner who will take over as interim offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan who will call the plays for the foreseeable future.

“At the end of the day, whatever is coming in play-wise or whatever’s install wise, for us as a group, we need to be locked into that,” Robinson said. “At the same time, the main thing is us as players coming together and making sure we are doing our efforts and our parts across the board to be able to clean up certain things, communication stuff, over-communicating and being on the same page. It’s doing everything necessary that we need to do to get this train pushing forward in the right direction.”

Canada was in his third season as the Steelers’ playcaller; wide receiver Diontae Johnson is the only significant contributor to the offense whose tenure with the team pre-dates Canada’s play-calling. The Steelers rank 28th in the league in both points and yards gained.

Both Freiermuth and Robinson said they were surprised by Canada’s firing.

“It just kind of heightens our sensitivity,” Freiermuth said of the move. “‘Let’s get going.’

“Obviously, everyone’s eyes are going to be on us and our offense this week. We have to execute and do what we have to do.”

Like quarterback Kenny Pickett alluded to there being no time for players to react to a move such as this in-season, veteran center Mason Cole said it wasn’t as if there was a group discussion or players-only meeting to do something of a post mortem on the Canada tenure.

“We appreciate him and his efforts and wish we were better for him,” Cole said. “But at the same time we have a divisional game to play this week, so we will have to look forward, not backwards.”

Said receiver Diontae Johnson: “You don’t ever want to see somebody lose their job, obviously. They put in the work just like everybody else put in work. It (stinks), but we just have to move forward and attack the game plan that they are building for us this week and just keep working and get ready for Sunday.”

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