The Pittsburgh Steelers are hoping to step into a new offensive era in 2024. After the last several seasons under their most recent offensive coordinator, the Steelers saw their offensive production hit some historically low levels. With new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and a totally revamped quarterback room, the Steelers hope to have vast improvements this season.

On the two most recent episodes of the Steelers Stat Geek podcast, I dove into various numbers under the Steelers offensive coordinators. Reporting the information last weekend on various stats, such as yards per game, yards per play, and points per game, the number showed how much the Steelers struggled offensively under Matt Canada. But one statistic that was surprisingly positive was the Steelers conversion rate.

As I continued to dive into the numbers to help explain why the Steelers had more success on third down under Canada, it led to many other interesting statistics. Seeing the low rate the Steelers were achieving first downs before they reached third down helped to explain the numbers. But while diving into everything, another statistic emerged that was quite concerning: Yards gained on first down.

If the Steelers are not setting themselves up for manageable second and third downs, it is difficult to sustain drives. Additionally, barely reaching the chains on each set of downs creates the need for extensive drives where one mistake along the way can completely derail the situation.

Keeping this in mind, I decided to go back and look at how successful the Steelers were in gaining yards on first down under each offensive coordinator. Since the data only went back to 1994 on Pro Football Reference, I began with the coordinator who I had all the information from their entire time with the Steelers in Chan Gailey. Below is a list of the average yards gained on first down and where the Steelers ranked during the years of each offensive coordinator dating back to 1996. It should be noted that Matt Canada‘s numbers are only for his two full seasons in 2001 and 2002 as we will look at 2003 separately by each coordinator.

One thing that stood out to me is that no offensive coordinator ranked higher than 16th in the NFL in yards gained on first down. While that is noticeable, the most glaring information from the above table is how much the first down production under offensive coordinator Matt Canada stands out above everything else. Not only was he ranked last in the NFL, it was more than half of a yard lower than the other coordinators.

But was the reason the Steelers had poor production on first down due to the coordinator or due to their personnel? Perhaps looking at the 2023 season under Matt Canada the first 10 games and Eddie Faulkner and Mike Sullivan the final seven can help to answer the question.

Although Canada‘s offense had a slight improvement of 0.3 yards per play on first down over the average from the previous two seasons, it was not enough of a significant change to ultimately feel it was heading enough in the right direction. What is surprising is the Steelers improved their yards gained on first down by an entire yard and were ranked in the top 10 after they moved on from Matt Canada.

At first glance, I decided to dive into the discrepancy in the numbers while Canada was coordinator and after he was relieved of his duties. Although it was different quarterbacks playing, the success of Mason Rudolph came in three of the seven games while the failures of Mitch Trubisky were mixed in together.

One common belief by many Steelers fans under Matt Canada was the infamous “run, run, pass” philosophy. While this equation did come into play at times throughout the season, I was surprised to find that the offense under Matt Canada only ran the ball 49.6% of the time on first down which ranked 18th in the NFL. But in the seven games after Canada, the Steelers ran the ball 68.1% of the time on first down which ranked first in the NFL. Yet the Steelers gained one more yard on average on first down.

Of course, if a pass is thrown incomplete there are no yards gained. So although Matt Canada may have thrown the ball more on first down than the interim coordinators it did not necessarily mean that the Steelers had more success in completing the passes. The issue with Matt Canada came more in being obvious what the Steelers were doing on first down based on their personnel and formations.

With the Steelers struggling so much on first down under Matt Canada, and showing that the numbers can improve once he was gone, there should be hope that the Steelers can get more offensive production to set themselves up for converting first downs and successfully moving the ball down the field. New offensive coordinator Arthur Smith in 2019 and 2020 with the Tennessee Titans saw his teams gaining 6.5 yards per play on first down which was ranked first in the NFL over that time period. Additionally, Smith’s offense ran the ball 61.9% of the time on first down, much like the Steelers when they saw success first over the last seven games of 2023.

Gaining more yards on first down is not the ultimate goal of an offense. Winning games and scoring points is what NFL offenses are really all about. But to put themselves in a better situation to do so, being a team that gains significant yards on first down puts them in a much better situation to find offensive success.