They’ve only played 17 snaps through two preseason games, but the Pittsburgh Steelers’ first-team offense appears to be humming as the regular season approaches.
After failing to generate explosive plays for most of the 2022 season, the offense has three explosive touchdowns on three drives to start the 2023 preseason. Part of that is due to the play of QB Kenny Pickett, who has noticeably progressed from his rookie season. He looks more comfortable and confident running the offense as well as making full field reads to locate the right receiver and deliver accurate passes to move the offense down the field.
Former Super Bowl-winning head coach and current analyst Mike Martz spoke about Pickett on the 33rd Team website, lavishing praise on the young passer for the confidence and charisma that he’s playing with, which is elevating the entire offense as a whole this preseason.
“He looks remarkable right now,” Martz said about Pickett on video at 33rdteam.com. “I can’t see why this doesn’t carry over to the season. This is kind of how he was playing at the end of the year, and I think by and large what’s that’s done to the whole football team is it’s raised everybody up an entire level. Because they got… ‘Ah man, we got a quarterback again’.”
Martz is best-known for his work with the St. Louis Rams when the team had “The Greatest Show On Turf”, having the likes of Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Tory Holt, and Isaac Bruce elevate them to a Super Bowl championship. Martz was one of the better offensive minds back in his day, making the compliments he gave Pickett notable after working with the likes of Warner, Alex Smith, and Jay Cutler during his NFL coaching career.
Pickett showed signs of this caliber of play last season, particularly on the team’s game-winning drive against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 16 when Pittsburgh mounted a fourth quarter comeback. However, there was a lack of consistency last season in Pickett’s performance as the rookie quarterback would go stretches of games missing the right read or failing to move the sticks on third down. It looks like the hard work put in during the offseason has paid off for Pickett and the rest of the offense as the unit is running on all cylinders with one preseason game left to play. Hopefully, Martz is right that this preseason success can carry over to the regular season as Pittsburgh looks to make some noise in the AFC in 2023.
