While the Pittsburgh Steelers have a really good defense and a run game that looks to have serious potential, it isn’t much of a secret that the ceiling of the 2023 Steelers relies on how good second-year QB Kenny Pickett is. No matter how good the rest of the team is, Pittsburgh won’t be able to win a Super Bowl without high-quality quarterback play. Today on 93.7 The Fan, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio told Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller the Steelers will go as far as Pickett takes them.
“It all depends on what Kenny Pickett can do because a great defense is only gonna take you so far in today’s NFL,” said Florio when asked about the Steelers’ ceiling this year. “A great defense is gonna help you win a Super Bowl, I don’t know if the great defense gets you there. You need great quarterback play to get there…But you gotta have somebody who makes big throw in a big spot to get there at some point along the way.”
Florio has a great point. When was the last time a simply average quarterback won the Super Bowl? Nick Foles in 2017 is the outlier of at worst borderline elite quarterbacks stretching from 2014 to now. For the Steelers to even get to a Super Bowl they need Pickett to play at a high level.
The good news for the Steelers is that they have the pieces around Pickett to make a deep run if he develops well and becomes a top-10 quarterback. The defense, when healthy is great, the weapons on offense are dangerous when they get going, and the run game has shown to be capable of putting teams away.
Pittsburgh’s biggest question mark this season is Pickett. While that is scary because it could turn out poorly, it could be great as he can smash expectations. Pickett has shown he has the clutch gene with four game-winning drives last year, so as long as he can score enough to keep up with the likes of Patrick Mahomes and and Josh Allen, he should be capable of making the big time plays in the end of the game. But he has to increase his scoring.
While he improved a lot down the stretch last season, Pickett never was able to light up the scoreboard. He had one game where he threw for over 300 yards (and he threw over 50 passes that game) and never threw for more than one touchdown a game. Those numbers simply aren’t good enough to be considered a top-10 quarterback or a Super Bowl-winning quarterback in today’s NFL. But he was a rookie. With a full season and offseason now under his belt he should be ready to go and be able to light up the scoreboard if necessary.
The key word though is should. We won’t know until the season starts if Pickett can elevate and be a top quarterback, and because of that we simply don’t know what the ceiling is on the 2023 Pittsburgh Steelers.
