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: The second-year quarterback escaped significant injury after hurting his knee last week while taking a sack on a play the details of which have been discussed at infinitum. Despite initial fears, he is set to return to the starting lineup today without missing a single game. Which is a good thing, because he has a lot to prove, and with the bye week coming up, that would be a long time sitting on questions with no opportunity to offer an answer.
I hope it’s obvious that this particular stock evaluation is based on injury status alone, and not on performance. QB Kenny Pickett is certainly not coming off one of his better games. But the fact that he is able to play today is what stands out at the moment.
The second-year quarterback has been rightly under fire for his play through the first four weeks of the season. He has been, on the whole, one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL so far this season, with a particularly disappointing completion percentage that is primarily on him and not his targets.
Of course, it goes beyond mere accuracy, and this ties directly into why his status was in question at all. He suffered a knee injury while unnecessarily vacating a clean(ish) pocket. In doing so, he scrambled toward a rusher, who then was able to disengage the left tackle because his own man had no idea he moved. He took a sack, and in the process, hurt his knee.
It’s hard to say until the game gets underway how his mobility might be impacted by the effects of his knee injury, but on the whole, he seems to be in pretty good shape to play. To put it another way, I expect he will continue his pattern of flushing out of the pocket when he shouldn’t, but let’s hope for otherwise.
The broader point is this: with the bye week coming up, Pickett doesn’t have to sit around for three weeks facing questions. Getting right back out there, he has the opportunity to try to address the concerns surrounding him and quiet down some of the criticism of himself and the team if he is able to go out there and play well.
Right now, it feels like a pretty big if. But it’s still an if that’s available.
