The Pittsburgh Steelers are in an interesting place right now. Their offense is very young but their defense is ready to win a championship. In the modern NFL, you’re only as good as your quarterback, and for the Steelers their quarterback is Kenny Pickett. Pickett is young and has a lot of room to improve after an average rookie season. One person who is buying his stock for the future is Bleacher Report’s Alex Ballentine.
Today, Ballentine wrote an article on each NFL team’s most promising building block and for the Steelers he chose Pickett.
“His rookie season came with mixed signals on that front [being a franchise quarterback],” wrote Ballentine. “He had top 10 marks in deep ball completion percentage and pressured completion percentage, per Player Profiler. But he was also 33rd overall in adjusted yards per attempt and 32nd in clean pocket completion percentage…The Steelers made prudent moves to give Pickett a better shot at success in 2023. They traded for Allen Robinson II giving them a veteran receiver to go with Diontae Johnson and George Pickens and drafted Broderick Jones to play left tackle in the first round. As long as offensive coordinator Matt Canada can put them in position, the pieces are there for the offense to be much better.”
Pickett made strides as the season progressed. The first few weeks were rough as Pickett threw interceptions and struggled to adjust to being a starting quarterback and working with the first team after spending training camp and some of the regular season working with the second and third teams. However, he consistently improved, and after the by the end of the season, looked like a brand-new quarterback.
The Steelers will only go as far as Pickett takes him and reviews from this offseason have been good. Many of his teammates have talked glowingly of him, and he has put in nonstop effort to get better. Obviously, we won’t know how he looks until training camp, but the overwhelming feeling among people in the know is that they are expecting a jump this season.
A big aspect to how Pickett plays this season will be offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Canada has taken flak over the past couple of seasons for his play calling, but to give him a bit of a defense the quarterback play has been below average most of that time. Canada must improve his play calling this year, but having Pickett in the system for a second year in a row and giving him more freedom should help improve the offense as whole. In addition, the team made moves to improve the offense such as adding Allen Robinson II and beefing up its offensive line. Pickett is not going to be asked to throw for 5,000 yards this year, but he has to improve on only seven touchdowns thrown and cut down on the turnovers.
Pickett has the chance to be a building block for the future, but he must take a leap this year. He certainly didn’t play badly last season, but he also didn’t play well enough to be considered a franchise quarterback.
