At least on the offensive side of the ball, Pittsburgh Steelers QB Kenny Pickett stands alone, precisely for his ability to bring everybody together. Voted as the lone offensive captain for the team (the first time since 2017 in which there was only one), it is a testament to the conviction his teammates have in him as their leader, not because everybody says he is but because he consistently shows that he is as a matter of course.
Teammates tried to explain it but struggled to do so. It always descends into generalities and cliches, but it all ultimately describes their first-hand experience as to how Pickett has become their leader and why he is their captain—their sole captain on offense.
“Just the way that he approaches each day, the way he grasps the offense”, LT Dan Moore Jr. told reporters about how he knew Pickett was their leader, via the team’s website. “He really has a voice. I talked to a lot of guys about it. Kenny has that ‘it’. I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but he has it”.
What is “it”? “You can’t describe it”, he said. “You either have it or you don’t. That’s the best way I can describe it”.
And it didn’t take long for him to notice “it” in Pickett. “Immediately”, he said, he recognized that quality or attribute or personality, something that he has only seen once before in his football career. “Ben [Roethlisberger]. That was probably the only other guy that I would say that had that”.
Granted, you’re probably not going to come across a ton of players with some ethereal X factor during your high school and college football days, especially if you are not playing for perennial powerhouse programs that consistently produce NFL material.
But the Steelers have known about Pickett’s “it” for a long time now, and they’ve never made it a secret. How many times over the past two years has head coach Mike Tomlin or someone else in the organization talked about their first-hand view of his development as the quarterback for the University of Pittsburgh, sharing the same facility?
The decision to draft him 20th overall in 2022, when he was just sitting there waiting for them, came easy, no matter what level of security they might have felt (or not felt) in the quarterback position at the time with veterans Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph under contract.
They’re still here, of course, and like everybody else, they have both fallen in behind Pickett, who is now the guy that everybody turns to. Because he has “it”. Whatever “it” is. But as long as you can feel “it”, that’s all that matters.
