With the Pittsburgh Steelers on a break before heading to Latrobe for training camp, we’re going to take a look at our expectations for this upcoming season and offer some over/under statistics to weigh in on. The offense wasn’t overly prolific last year, but the defense did put up some big numbers.
That can change in 2023 now that the offense is beginning to mature around second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett, though, and if the Steelers can keep T.J. Watt healthy all year, that will only help everybody be more productive—perhaps especially the defensive backs. So each day we’ll project one stat line, whether for a player or a unit, and share our thoughts before asking you to weigh in on whether you think they will hit the over or the under.
It is your job to project whether or not the over or under will be hit. At the end of the series we will be tallying up the answers for each installment to create a collective pre-training camp snapshot of where you stand heading into the 2023 season.
Stat Line: 24.5 touchdown passes for Kenny Pickett
If the second-year jump is a real thing, then Kenny Pickett is going to need a big one to realize this stat line. As a rookie, the quarterback only tossed seven touchdowns in 13 games, starting 12 of them, though he hardly got to play in one of those starts.
Even if you give him another six games, he was averaging well under a touchdown pass per game. He would have to average almost a touchdown pass and a half per game, practically double his rate last year on the most generous projection, in order to hit the mark.
But there is ample reason to believe he can make that reasonable jump. Let’s start with basic facts. It’s a number that about a dozen or more quarterbacks manage to hit every year, so it’s not exactly like Pickett would have to do anything particularly special.
One key area of focus is going to be the red zone. That’s an area in which Pickett knows better than anybody that he struggled, but he should improve there simply through having gained experience in those situations last year, and through the chemistry he is building with his targets this year.
One top of that, he has at his disposal some players who have produced in the scoring department before. Diontae Johnson and Pat Freiermuth are each only a year removed scoring 7-8 touchdowns on their own, and you know George Pickens will be good for more than four, given what he did as a rookie.
Then we add the deep passing play, which wasn’t as much in play as it could have been last year. Improvement in pass protection and a better feel for the game, and more trust in his targets, should see Pickett increase his deep pass attempts, some of which should find the end zone. Calvin Austin III is a potential home-run threat that the Steelers didn’t have last season.
Still, it’s a sizeable jump to go from seven touchdowns to 25 or more in just one season, largely playing with the same weapons as last season. The only new face that is guaranteed to have a pretty big role is Allen Robinson II. We don’t know what Austin is going to do, and Darnell Washington isn’t going to step in as the next Antonio Gates.
Couple that with the repeated messaging this offseason about an emphasis on the run and we could see a lot of Pickett’s potential scoring production gobbled up on the ground. If you think about it, the improvements in the trenches are more likely to tip the scoring in that area. One thing the offense did last year is get into the red zone. They did a decent job scoring on the ground in 2022, but they are better equipped to finish even more of them this year. So for that reason, you have to strongly consider the possibility of Pickett checking in somewhere south of 25 passing touchdowns—likely with some rushing touchdowns of his own mixed in that could push him over 25 total scores.
So what do you think? Taking these factors—and surely others–into consideration, are you taking the over or under on 24.5 passing touchdowns for Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett? Answer below and at the end of the series we’ll tally all your answers together to see where you stand before we get to training camp.
