Prior to the start of the 2023 NFL season, there were a lot of eyes on Pittsburgh Steelers QB Kenny Pickett as he prepared for his second NFL season. By all accounts, he had a good training camp and was as close to perfect as humanly possible during the preseason.
However, none of that carried over to Pickett’s performance in the Steelers’ 30-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week One. That certainly has been fodder for people who have insisted that Pickett is not going to develop into a quality starting NFL quarterback.
However, Sports Illustrated/MMQB reporter Albert Breer is taking a slightly longer-term look at Pickett’s future, focusing more on his third year than his second as the most important part. He spoke with Colin Cowherd on Monday’s episode of the Herd about both Pickett and his offensive coordinator, Matt Canada.
“I don’t see the Steelers ever making a change in season, but year three is the critical year for a young quarterback,” Breer said. “It’s when the Dolphins brought in Mike McDaniel for Tua Tagovailoa. It’s when the Patriots brought back Bill O’Brien for Mac Jones. Next year is going to be the critical year for Kenny Pickett, and certainly, it’s going to be when they need to get answers on Kenny Pickett. And if they feel like Matt Canada’s not the guy to get it done by then, then I can certainly see ownership saying it’s time for us to make some changes on the staff.”
It’s no secret that a lot of people have pinpointed Canada as the biggest weak link to the offense’s success. Even in Sunday’s loss, WR George Pickens revealed that the offense did not expect the type of coverage they were primarily seeing from the 49ers.
There was certainly plenty of blame to go around when it came to the offense’s lackluster performance, and the players certainly could have executed better. However, it’s the offensive coordinator’s responsibility to both draw up a game plan and then make adjustments as necessary. The scoreboard insists that Canada failed in both regards.
Does that necessarily mean that Canada is a failure and Pittsburgh needs to jettison him immediately? A lot of people would say yes. Breer thinks that the likelihood of that happening is next to none. If he’s correct, that means Canada has 16 games and 17 weeks to get this right.
If Canada can’t get it right in 2023, it would make complete sense for the Steelers to bring in someone to get the best out of Pickett in year three and give the organization the answer to whether Pickett is going to be the next franchise quarterback or not. It’s entirely possible that Pickett will never be a franchise quarterback no matter the coordinator, but Pittsburgh should have the best people in place to find that out. So far, it’s hard to argue that Canada is the one to do so.
