Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: QB Kenny Pickett
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: After two weeks of disappointing performances, the second-year quarterback had his best game of the season last night, including his first-ever game with multiple touchdown passes, the offense putting up 25 points after only scoring 20 in the first two games combined.
It’s no mark of honor to get your first game as a starting quarterback with multiple touchdown passes in your 16th game. In fact, it’s not very good at all to take that long to achieve that feat. But there’s never a bad time to get that monkey off your back, such as it is.
That is what Steelers second-year QB Kenny Pickett did last night with his first game with multiple touchdown passes on the night. The first was a 72-yard catch-and-run to WR Calvin Austin III, now the longest play of his career. The second went to TE Pat Freiermuth, who has two of the team’s four offensive touchdowns, which was good for 13 yards.
It wasn’t just the scoring, however. Outside of an error or miscommunication that nearly led to a pick-six that was mercifully dropped, Pickett completed 16 of 28 pass attempts for 235 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions—his first clean sheet of the year. It also marked his first game with a 100-plus passer rating at 108.5.
There is still a lot of room for improvement. He still gets happy feet in the pocket and he deserves a lot of ‘credit’ for the one sack he did take. He was pressured often throughout the night, but sometimes he rolled himself into it and abandoned clean pockets.
On the whole, however, it was clearly a better game from the young quarterback in comparison to the first two weeks of the season. That is particularly significant given the location. The first two games were at home. He managed to make that jump while going on the road the first time this year.
Of course, this still isn’t the franchise quarterback the Steelers signed up for. Getting your first 100-plus passer rating and throwing for multiple touchdowns is such a minor accomplishment in the grand scheme of things.
This needs to be the first step to something much greater. Chances are he’s not going to be the next Patrick Mahomes, but there will be times that they need him to be something more than he’s currently shown. The defense isn’t going to hold teams to under 20 points or make up the difference on their own every week.
