As Kenny Pickett moves into Year Two, all eyes are on him at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp. He showed flashes of greatness last year, but this will be his first of hopefully many seasons at the helm of the Steelers’ offense. And it’ll be up to him to prove to the fans and the organization that he can be a franchise quarterback.
For Kenny Pickett, it’s always been about his intelligence, and managing an offense. He’s athletic, but you wouldn’t say he’s the fastest guy in the league. He has a good arm, but you probably wouldn’t put him among the elite arms in the NFL. What Pickett will have to hang his hat on if he wants a long and prosperous career is his football IQ and leadership.
And there’s no more of the easy rookie mistake excuses for Pickett in 2023. He’s had time to forge connections with his receivers and learn the playbook inside and out.
The sheer amount of plays in an NFL playbook can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned college quarterback as he transitions to the NFL. Pickett knows this and touched on how important training camp is regarding that very topic in an interview with Peter King. You can listen to the whole interview here.
“That’s what’s so special about really spring and training camp. You may run one thing, and it may be a thousand plays until you run it in a game, but at least you have something to fall back on and say okay we ran this, we had success or we didn’t have success and this was why.” Pickett mentioned. “Having those things and being able to understand a large volume of offense and when guys can comprehend that kind of stuff, it makes our life easier when the season comes around.”
While the headlines coming out of training camp often relate to a player’s stats in drills, or how so and so is in the best shape of his life, this is ultimately what it is all about. Getting the nuances of your playbook down.
That way, when it’s crunch time in a crucial regular season game in December, your legs are gone and the wear and tear of a season has taken a toll on you, this stuff is second nature. For Pickett, that is going to be key. He doesn’t have the elite physical skills to grant himself any room for error.
It really comes down to that question for Pickett in 2023: Can he do enough to command this offense in those crucial games? The Steelers should be in the hunt thanks to good coaching and good defense. If they want more than to just be in the hunt, it’ll be up to Pickett to take them there.
