It’s Okay To Be Reasonable With Kenny Pickett Expectations
Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
It’s not dramatic to say that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season will likely ride on the success (or lack thereof) of Kenny Pickett. With hype at an all-time high and the season opener rapidly approaching, now is the perfect time to take a breath and have a reasonable conversation about expectations for the second-year quarterback
Pickett was the only first-round pick in a quarterback class that many thought would produce four Day 1 selections. Instead of a quarterback race, the former Pitt Panther slid and ended up with one of the top coaching staffs in the NFL, leaving players like Malik Willis, Sam Howell, and Desmond Ridder to fall all the way to the third round and beyond.
The Steelers’ decision was rewarded halfway into the season when Pickett engineered the first game-winning drive of his career against the New Orleans Saints. He followed that up with fourth-quarter comebacks against Indianapolis in Week 11, Las Vegas Raiders in Week 15, and Baltimore Ravens in Week 16. It seemed clear, the Black and Gold had their clutch comeback kid for the future.
But the dirty secret is that they needed those comebacks because he – and the rest of the Steelers – weren’t playing all that well to begin with. In those four games, Pickett averaged a passer rating of 83.6 and generated 6.33 yards per attempt. Over a full season, that passer rating would have ranked 29th, just ahead of Carson Wentz. That yards per attempt mark would have ranked 32nd of 33 quarterbacks, with only Zach Wilson behind him. Importantly, the numbers in those games matched his season-long total.
It’s not as if he played with a bereft supporting cast either – the offensive line was largely average in most respects, with their primary issue coming as a run-blocking unit. The receiving corps wasn’t stellar, but it was better than many teams. Players like Pat Freiermuth and Diontae Johnson are great for an organization to have, and those two in particular have skillsets that make them friendly to young quarterbacks given their route-running skill, timing, and wide catch radiuses.
Despite all the enthusiasm, there was fair reason for concern at the conclusion of 2023.
Then came the stellar 2023 preseason. The attitude surrounding Pickett – and fellow second-year player George Pickens – has turned. The two hooked up for stunning highlight after stunning highlight, and Pickett ended the preseason with a perfect passer rating on just 15 attempts.
His touchdown to Pickens against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a truly stellar throw, one that’s replicable against regular-season NFL defenses. His touchdown to Freiermuth over Matt Milano is another reason for optimism. He’s more cleanly integrated athleticism into his playing style, allowing it to truly complement his play rather than supplement it.
But even with those performances, we saw some of the same concerning signs that characterized his flat rookie year – a tendency to hold on to the ball too long, passes that died outside of the hashes, and a reliance on contested catches to bolster his production. He did avoid dicey passes, an issue he had last year, and benefited from a cleaner pocket than he was used to – meaning he was perhaps correct to take a little bit more time to find his best throw. But those don’t always translate in the regular season, especially when throwing against starters as opposed to the Atlanta Falcons’ backups.
He won’t always have the clean looks he saw in the preseason, and though he was generally a good decision-maker, despite the interception total last year, muddy defenses cause him problems. Once Pickens receives tighter coverage, it’s going to be difficult to consistently return to that well and hope he’ll make another highlight-reel catch.
Last year, Pickett didn’t throw down the field all that often, with just 12% of his passes going deep. That enabled a successful deep game, efficiency-wise, because defenses weren’t cheating deep and rotating two safeties high or keeping their corners in low zones. If the preseason is truly a preview of what’s to come, he’ll throw deep much more often in 2023. And defenses will adjust by moving safeties around. Though that should create opportunities for players like Johnson and Freiermuth – not to mention running backs Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren – it could mean that his arm strength concerns bring him back down to earth as some of the rainbow balls get picked off.
To put it simply, Kenny Pickett, like most second-year quarterbacks who aren’t Patrick Mahomes, is still a bit of a mystery. And that’s okay. It’s good to have expectations for the guy who holds the most important position on the team. It’s also good to understand that players in this league, even ones with the clutch gene, take time to develop and work through bad habits. Mike Tomlin said it best on The Rich Eisen Show back in May when he described what it would truly mean for Kenny Pickett “to kill it” in 2023.
“I expect him to kill it,” Tomlin said. “And I’ll describe what I mean by that. It’s the second lap around the track. He’s no longer speculating in terms of what this business is about. What the job demands, what the challenges are, what the feel of the process is like…he has all that experience. I think it’s reasonable for him to have significant growth in all areas with that understanding. To be more engaged with the process and to have an opinion about the process. To lead more comfortably with his own voice.”
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