Promotion to interim offensive coordinator a bittersweet moment for Steelers’ Eddie Faulkner
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Eddie Faulkner realizes the opportunity afforded to him.
At 46, he has a chance over the final seven games of the season to state a case to be an NFL offensive coordinator, either full-time with the Pittsburgh Steelers or with another team depending on what transpires in these next two months.
He’s also keenly aware that he is in this position because his friend, Matt Canada, was fired two-and-a-half years into his job as offensive coordinator. Faulkner and Canada spent nearly four years working alongside each other with the Steelers after being on the same college staffs at Northern Illinois and N.C. State.
Which is why Faulkner used the word “bittersweet” to describe his promotion.
“I care about his well-being. I care about his family,” Faulkner said Thursday in his first interview since he was elevated to interim offensive coordinator Tuesday by coach Mike Tomlin. “Our wives are friends. Our parents are friends. Our kids are friends. We spend a lot of time together. Love the dude. I couldn’t say enough good about Matt Canada.”
While Canada was the lightning rod for criticism during a 44-game run in which the Steelers offense averaged fewer than 18 points, the barbs and zingers also were felt by Faulkner. He also couldn’t escape the “Fire Canada” chants that rang out through Acrisure Stadium when the offense struggled.
“We’re all part of that,” he said. “Nobody is absolving themselves from anything that has happened in that regard. We feel like we let him down.”
Faulkner will work with quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan to get the No. 28-ranked offense in general and quarterback Kenny Pickett in particular back on track. Faulkner holds the title, but Sullivan will call the plays beginning Sunday in Cincinnati when the 6-4 Steelers face the 5-5 Bengals.
Faulkner and Sullivan will work from the sideline, where Canada spent his final three games calling plays after previously working from the coaching box.
“He and I are going to work really hard to be in lockstep together,” Faulkner said. “On game day, any play caller wants 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 that when we go into that game atmosphere, we’re all on the same page.”
Faulkner oversees a running backs group that was responsible for the Steelers averaging 146 yards in the second half of the 2022 season. In the past three weeks, the Steelers have averaged 181 yards on the ground. Sullivan called plays at two stops and worked with Eli Manning in New York.
“You can tell they are genuine coaches, and they really want what’s best for us,” running back Jaylen Warren said. “I think having coaches like that will make us play harder for them.”
Aside from — as Faulkner described it — “pushing the button and talking in Kenny’s helmet,” he will handle the communication, run meetings and build the game plan with input from the rest of the coaching staff.
“I’m a real detail guy,” he said. “I’m probably on the spectrum somewhere. That’s how I operate. That’s how I operated the running back room, so that’s how I’m operating anything that has to do with the offense and our staff.”
Faulkner’s only previous stint as an offensive coordinator was from 2009-10 when he held the role at Mid-American Conference school Ball State. He was coaching tight ends, fullbacks and special teams at N.C. State when Tomlin hired him as running backs coach after the 2018 season.
A year earlier, Faulkner was selected as one of eight minority college coaches to participate in a professional development program. His goal is to expand the short list of minority offensive coordinators in the NFL. Of the 32 NFL teams, just three had minority offensive coordinators entering the season.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was a blessing,” Faulkner said. “I totally understand that. I’m at a point in my career where I totally understand the opportunity that is there, but at the same time it’s not clouding what the task at hand is.”
That task, of course, is what has consumed Faulkner since Canada was dismissed Tuesday.
“We have to play the Bengals in a couple days,” he said. “That is it. That was my sole focus. There was no, ‘Oh, this could segue into this or that.’ This was all about getting ready for the Bengals.”