The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: Was Sunday’s win the confidence booster Kenny Pickett needs to get going?
While Sunday’s win over the Las Vegas Raiders was far from perfect, it was certainly an improvement for the Steelers and their offense in particular. For one thing, they managed to score more than 10 points, more than doubling their season total. Of their 40 points scored on offense this season, 23 came in their last outing.
One of the biggest differences had nothing to do with quality of opponent or venue. It was simply QB Kenny Pickett playing better than he had been. He made better decisions. He made better throws that he wasn’t making in the first two weeks.
It didn’t hurt that they were also able to run more of their offense. Even though they started the game with two three-and-outs, they picked it up thereafter, and even Pickett acknowledged that it allowed them to get deeper into their playbook than was possible the first two weeks.
That doesn’t mean that he isn’t missing throws and making poor decisions, however. He’s beginning to feel more comfortable in the pocket, but he is still vacating prematurely when he feels pressure. The designed rollouts have been a net positive so far, but can still use some fine-tuning.
The bottom line is this is the first game of the season that the Steelers can say their offense significantly positively contributed to the outcome, so they have to feel better about this outing than the first two weeks. Coaches and players were feeling questions about confidence levels and getting frank answers.
Will this game be the building block toward the offense that they are supposed to have this year? it has to start with a certain level of comfort and confidence in what you’re doing, and this was the first time things were looking the way they were supposed to, outside of WR George Pickens’ performance last week.
