What kind of statistical season will Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett have in his second NFL season? If you go by the over/under lines at the major online sportsbooks, Pickett’s statistical outlook is very modest.
According to DKSportsbook, the over/under for passing touchdowns for Pickett in 2023 is just 18.5, which is just a hair more than one per game. To give that over/under a little perspective, the line on Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud is 21.5 when it comes to total touchdown passes. The highest current over/under number of any NFL quarterback belongs to Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs at 36.5. That’s obviously nearly double Pickett’s over/under number.
Last season as a rookie, Pickett threw seven touchdown passes. As a team, the Steelers had just 12 touchdown passes with one of those coming from wide receiver Chase Claypool. In 2019, the Steelers registered 18 touchdown passes, and that’s the season that veteran quarterback Ben Roethlisberger went down in Week 2 with his elbow injury.
So, what about Pickett’s over/under number when it comes to passing yards? As of now, that number is 3,300.5. For Pickett to go over that number, he would need an average of roughly 195 passing yards per game. To put that over/under number into perspective, Stroud’s is currently set slightly higher than Pickett’s at 3,400.5. Mahomes, on the other hand, has his passing yardage over/under number set at 4,800.5, which is 1,500 more than Pickett’s.
Last season, the Steelers registered 3,661 total passing yards with Pickett being responsible for 2,404 of them. Pickett also only played in 13 games as a rookie.
The Steelers are obviously expected to be a run-heavy offense in 2023 and that’s probably a big reason why his over/under totals are super modest.
While I’m certainly not attempting to compare Pickett to Roethlisberger in any form or fashion, a lot of people probably forget that the long-time Steelers quarterback didn’t top 18 touchdown passes in a single season until 2007, his fourth year in the league. He averaged a little more than 17 touchdown passes thrown in his first three seasons before throwing 32 of them in his fourth.
Should Pickett indeed top his over/under number for touchdown passes in 2023, that will likely be viewed as a nice accomplishment by the team’s 2022 first-round draft pick. In the meantime, let me know, are you hammering the over when it comes to both passing touchdowns and yardage for Pickett in 2023?
