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 firing of offensive coordinator Matt Canada can only be good news for QB Kenny Pickett. At least that must be the perspective the team holds, or they would not have made the move. One can only imagine that they felt Canada was holding back his growth. Pickett has the opportunity today to present himself anew, a fresh start. A good game would do wonders for the general perception about the trajectory of his career.
Basically, the Steelers have given Kenny Pickett a mulligan. Though it was only one of many factors, the quarterback’s lack of growth under offensive coordinator Matt Canada must surely have been one of the primary reasons he was fired.
Now that Canada is gone, the shackles are off. Head coach Mike Tomlin has been talking for a couple weeks now about needing to see more from his young quarterback. Canada was the excuse. Now the excuses are removed, and we’ll see what that means.
Will he play freer under Eddie Faulkner as his offensive coordinator and Mike Sullivan as his play-caller? Well, the plays being called could help with that. We will have to see how it plays out, and we might not see a great deal in the first week of that colossal change.
But the point is, it opens that door. It sends the message: the problem was Canada. We have removed him so that we can move on. Pickett can begin to take steps forward now that he is no longer encumbered by an offensive coordinator with whom he did not fit, if the results are anything to go by.
That’s the hope, anyway. Faulkner isn’t going to help him scan the field better. Sullivan won’t make him throw any more accurately. And Canada’s absence probably isn’t going to eliminate the miscommunications he has with his receivers.
Canada was always going to be gone after this season, one way or another, but their decision to fire him during the year says something about how important they felt it was. At the very least, it gives them a window into seeing what the offense, and what their prospective franchise quarterback, look like without him for seven weeks before deciding on who the next coordinator will be. Perhaps these two months will even inform that process.
