Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mitch Trubisky came in to replace the injured Kenny Pickett early in the third quarter in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 20-18 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Trubisky started the team’s first three games of the season, but even though he’s not the starter now, he said he prepared this week as if he was.
“I studied this week as if I was a starter and you just prepare that way and I was helping Kenny [Pickett] on the sidelines in the first half. Just constant communication trying to help these guys, and when your number gets called, you just go out and do a different job,” Trubisky said in his postgame press conference via the team’s YouTube channel.
In the NFL, you never know when you’ll be needed. So even though the life of a backup quarterback gets lauded sometimes, as guys can make millions of dollars and barely ever see the field, it’s not all that glamorous. You have to prepare and study because on any given Sunday, anything can happen. You have to prepare as if you’re playing every single snap, and that’s exactly what Trubisky did. It paid off, as Trubisky had to come in to replace Pickett and he led a key scoring drive that paved the way for Pittsburgh’s victory.
Trubisky said coming in the game in that situation was “backyard football”
“I wanted to continue to be aggressive, play free, and everyone kind of just rallied together. So it was fun. That’s backyard football if you will, but it was fun. We made plays when we had to.”
They certainly did make the plays they had to, including two key third-down conversions on the team’s final drive. The offense looked a lot better in Trubisky’s last two drives then almost any drive Trubisky led preceding it, with the exception of maybe the two touchdown drives in the first half of the Browns game.
This job is still Kenny Pickett’s, but it was good to see Trubisky positively impact the team and help lead them to a win. In a game that close every play matters, and he made the ones he had to put an end to the Steelers four-game losing streak and get back in the win column. If nothing else, if Pickett can’t go next week, I’m a lot more confident in Mitch Trubisky right now than I was about three hours ago.
