To me, the biggest problem with Canada is not the high school level offensive schemes and plays. It’s not the utter lack of production, the garbage play calls and blatant predictability. It’s not that we haven’t had a 400 yard game with him as coordinator. All of those things are horrifying, but they’re fixable when he’s finally shown the dor. What is going to stick with us for at least a year after he’s gone is the lack of a viable assessment of Kenny Pickett’s ability.
I’m not a Pickett jock rider. He’s our QB so I hope he’s great, but I don’t have a personal investment in him being the guy who leads us forward. He’s shown flashes of really solid play, he’s had some real clunkers and blown opportunities. But under the yoke of Canada’s garbage offense, can we even get close to an accurate assessment of his ability to produce at the NFL level? I don’t think you can, which means we’re going to have to give him a solid number of games post-Canada to even know what we really have in this kid. That’s going to be Canada’s final eff you to this organization and fanbase.
100%. It’s made worse by the fact that the Steelers’ core defensive stars aren’t getting any younger. Watt is going to turn 30 next season, Fitzpatrick 28, Cam Heyward will already be 35 in Week 1 of 2024. I’m not expecting the first two to fall off a cliff, but the beginning of their decline is probably closer than the beginning of their respective primes.
At this point they’ve effectively tied Pickett to their most useful years, and you just can’t say with even a shred of certainty that he could be anything approaching a top 10 QB.