If you like watching football X’s and O’s on YouTube, you’ve probably come across The QB School. Run by former NFL QB J.T. O’Sullivan, he spends his time evaluating the tape of notable quarterback performances across the league. They’re in-depth and thorough and certainly worth watching.
For the first time this regular season, O’Sullivan posted a breakdown of QB Kenny Pickett’s performance Sunday night against the Las Vegas Raiders. Statistically, it was Pickett’s best game of the season, going 16-of-28 for 235 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. It was the first multi-touchdown game of his career.
Did the tape match the stats? Short answer. Pretty much. In the conclusion of his video, O’Sullivan praised Pickett’s overall performance.
“I thought Kenny Pickett looked pretty good,” O’Sullivan said. “Made some really impressive throws. Was able to get out on the edge. Create off-platform as well.”
It was an improved performance for an offense in desperate need of one. The run game was stronger, Pittsburgh could better stick to their script, and playaction was an effective weapon, leading to one of Pickett’s scores, a touchdown to TE Pat Freiermuth.
But O’Sullivan couldn’t end the video just focusing on Pickett. Reiterating a similar criticism from before, he chided Matt Canada’s playcalling and paint-by-numbers system.
“I personally don’t like watching this offense. It feels dated. It feels static. It feels like there’s so much that could be in terms of any iteration of innovation that just never shows up on the film.”
In the preseason, O’Sullivan said similar, opining the offense runs too many simple spacing concepts and rarely does anything interesting like the best offenses in football. It’s a fair critique. Even the Houston Texans with a first-year head coach and rookie quarterback have more interesting passing concepts than the Steelers.
But back to Pickett. His biggest play of the night was a 72-yard touchdown pass to WR Calvin Austin III for the team’s first points of the game. O’Sullivan walked through the moment.
“Love the aggressiveness. We’re going to hit No. 1 to the bottom on a post…great job from Pickett seeing it here.”
He later called it a “big boy” throw. As Pickett outlined to the media, the Raiders were doubling WR George Pickens in what the Steelers dub “double your stars” coverage, meaning the defense takes away your top players. With the safety rolling coverage to bracket Pickens, Austin was left one-on-one with the corner and used his 4.3 speed to run past him. Pickett put the ball on the money for the big touchdown.
It marked the first time since 2018 the Steelers had 70-plus yard touchdowns in back-to-back weeks. In Week Two of this year, Pickens scored from 71 yards out against the Cleveland Browns.
Later, O’Sullivan reviewed a third down completion to Pickens, taking a shot over the middle but standing and delivering a strike for the first down.
“You want to play quarterback in the league. Third down…what a great job.”
By no means was it a perfect performance and O’Sullivan noted how lucky the team got on CB Marcus Peters’ dropped interception, that would’ve been an easy pick-six.
But Pickett and the offense took steps. Even if O’Sullivan loathes watching a simplified offense at the game’s highest level.
It’s a long video, over 30 minutes, but worth your time. Be sure to watch the whole thing.
