After a strong end to the 2022 season, and an offseason that has been praised constantly by the media, the Pittsburgh Steelers are being talked about as a team that could make some noise this year. One person who believes this is former NFL player and current analyst Brian Baldinger. Baldinger was recently in Pittsburgh to watch some of minicamp and came away very impressed.
On the In The Huddle podcast with Baldinger and Carl Dukes, Baldinger said he believes thr Steelers could be very competitive, but it depends on their quarterback.
“If Kenny Pickett takes any kind of a step — and he played really good in the second half of the season, won some big games for them — if he plays with the level of consistency that they need, that anybody needs at that position, and what they’ve done on the offensive line, how they’ve upgraded it, the heavy competition on the defensive and offensive lines, which both needed to be upgraded, this could be a highly competitive team,” Baldinger said.
In a quarterback-driven league the development of Pickett is going to be the most important thing for the Steelers. The team has given him weapons and has built up its offensive line, but for the Steelers to be a “highly competitive team” he needs to take a step.
As Baldinger said, Pickett showed improvement down the stretch last year as he stopped turning the ball over and made clutch plays to help win games. After the bye week, Pickett threw for five touchdowns and only one interception while also leading four game-winning drives. He needs to play more like that and less like Pickett before the bye week when he threw only two touchdowns and eight interceptions.
I tend to agree with Baldinger that for the Steelers to be highly competitive they need Pickett to take a big step. It’s not a hot take, but I feel a lot of people think the Steelers can make noise by how they played the end of last season. Yes, they won their last seven of nine, but the way they were winning isn’t sustainable. Relying on the run game and defense is fine, but you can’t consistently rely on game-winning drives. The Steelers need Pickett to be able to throw more than one touchdown a game while continuing to take care of the ball.
Unless injuries ravage the team, the Steelers will be competitive next season. Their roster is strong, and they have an elite head coach in Mike Tomlin. But if they want to take the step from competitive to highly competitive it comes down to Kenny Pickett.
