If Mitch Trubisky starts for Kenny Pickett in Thursday’s game against the Tennessee Titans, he’ll be aiming for a far better performance than he had coming off the bench in Sunday’s 20-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Replacing Pickett at the end of the first half, Trubisky finished the game 15-of-27 for 138 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions.
According to Pro Football Focus’ grading, he didn’t fare any better than his stat line indicated. Of the 27 quarterbacks who took at least half of their team’s drop backs in the game, Trubisky finished 27th with the weekend’s lowest grade, a 42.3 overall score. From a passing grade standpoint, he was only slightly better at 25th, ahead of Arizona’s Josh Dobbs and Cleveland’s P.J. Walker.
Trubisky led the Steelers’ only touchdown drive of the day, ending in a 22-yard George Pickens touchdown, but he and the offense did little else. He was also responsible for two interceptions. The latter came on a Hail Mary at the end of the game but the first one was a killer, Trubisky firing the ball into triple-coverage and getting picked off by a lurking safety. Down 17-10 in the fourth quarter, it was our turning point of the game, and led to Jacksonville kicking a field goal to make it a two-score game.
Trubisky also threw several other passes that were nearly intercepted. His style has always been that of a gunslinger. There’s enough arm talent to make impressive plays and throws but far too often, it gets him into trouble with tunnel vision and costly turnovers. Since being benched for QB Kenny Pickett last season, Trubisky has thrown five interceptions in a spot-duty with the team. As we wrote this morning, the Steelers are a team with zero margin for error and even when they effectively won the turnover battle plus-two against Jacksonville, they still easily lost the game.
Though it came in limited snaps and Pickett not receiving half the team’s drop backs, he was actually the weekend’s ninth-best QB overall with an overall grade of 76.8. That put him one slot behind the quarterback Pittsburgh is likely to face Thursday, Tennessee’s Will Levis, who wowed with a four-touchdown NFL debut in a Titans’win. He became only the second quarterback in NFL history with four touchdowns in his first game, joining Marcus Mariota in 2015. Funny enough, both were Titans when they achieved that feat.
Pickett’s status for Thursday night is unknown. During his weekly press conference, Tomlin called Pickett a game-time decision and said how he looks in Wednesday’s practice will go a long way in determining who will start.
