Losing QB coaching duties doesn't bother Steelers' Randy Fichtner
For his third season as Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator, Randy Fichtner gained an extra assistant coach and lost a job title — all with one transaction.
In January, Fichtner relinquished his duties as the team’s quarterbacks coach — a position he had held since 2010 — when the Steelers hired former Pitt assistant Matt Canada.
While Fichtner will have one less job responsibility, he still will work closely with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Canada, 48, was hired to aid in the development of backups Mason Rudolph, Duck Hodges, Paxton Lynch and J.T. Barrett.
Fichtner said Wednesday he welcomes the addition of Canada to Mike Tomlin’s staff.
“It is more knowledge in the room,” he said. “It’s one more opportunity to throw ideas around.”
When Fichtner was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2018, he retained his quarterback coaching position because of his close decade-long relationship with Roethlisberger. That worked fine that year when Roethlisberger led the NFL in passing yardage, not so much in 2019 when Roethlisberger didn’t play after the second game because of an elbow injury that required season-ending surgery.
Rudolph and Hodges struggled at times, and Fichtner perhaps was stretched too thin with all of his responsibilities, which led to the Canada hiring a few weeks after the season ended.
“I think it’s a big job. I believe it’s a fun job,” Fichtner said. “It keeps communication at a premium. I also know that when it comes to ideas and when it comes to thoughts and things you can bring to the table every week and what he can bring to the table that might be different than I would in that room is going to be really fun to see and develop.”
Canada served as a quarterbacks coach at seven stops at the NCAA level during a career that began at Indiana in 1994. His work as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Pitt in 2016 led to a job at LSU the next season.
Canada was hired as Maryland offensive coordinator in 2018, but he was promoted to interim head coach before the season began. He was out of football last season.
Hey, Steelers Nation, get the latest news about the Pittsburgh Steelers here.
Joe Rutter is a TribLive reporter who has covered the Pittsburgh Steelers since the 2016 season. A graduate of Greensburg Salem High School and Point Park, he is in his fifth decade covering sports for the Trib. He can be reached at jrutter@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.