In an impatient league, the expectation is that Pittsburgh Steelers QB Kenny Pickett should already be looking like a Super Bowl-winning starter. While they did hold him out of the starting lineup to begin his career briefly, he is still early in his development.
Even with that being said, he certainly could be looking a lot better than he is. And arguably the most frustrating element is his tendency to vacate clean or manageable pockets, putting himself in negative positions. Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette argued it might be the “number one thing to straighten out” in his game. He shared his thoughts on this tendency with Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller on 93.7 The Fan.
“That tells me that he doesn’t trust his own decisions or he doesn’t trust his receivers”, the veteran reporter said. “Like, he’s not seeing it. When you have definitive reads and you know they’re gonna come open, there’s that natural tendency as a quarterback to hang in there, to make those throws”.
As he pointed out, this tendency is not necessarily inherent, but learned. We have seen numerous times in which he stood in the pocket and took a hit in order to make a throw—when he knew the play would be there to be made.
He’s even done that this season, as on his 71-yard touchdown pass to WR George Pickens a couple of weeks ago. But by and large, this tendency has only been getting worse. He’s passing up plays in order to roll out of the pocket when he feels pressure too often, not standing in there and weathering the pressure.
“There’s nothing that I’ve seen from Kenny that he has any inkling to do that this year”, Fittipaldo said of his ability to stand and deliver in the pocket. “I don’t think it’s a courage thing. I just think he’s not trusting what he’s seeing right now with the offense”.
Part of the problem with this tendency is that it often puts the quarterback in worse positions. When you change your position in the pocket, or even vacate the pocket entirely, you change the rush angles. And the ones who see that are not your offensive linemen, but the rushers. Pickett bears significant responsibility for the majority of the sacks he’s taken this year because of that, including the one on which he was injured last week.
It’s always a combination of factors when you have an issue this large. The pass protection hasn’t been good enough. The receivers haven’t been getting open enough—Diontae Johnson is missed right here. The schemes aren’t giving him many easy throws to make. And, of course, he’s making his own contributions to the problem.
But ultimately, what’s happening is that he is not trusting he will have enough time to make the play that needs to be made. On one play he may not trust that his lineman will pick up the rusher. On another he might not feel his target will get open in time. it’s definitely a trust issue—but one that’s also rooted in the reality of the current state of the offense. That’s not an excuse for him to keep doing it, though.
