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 played about as well as one could without actually scoring a touchdown with his arms or his legs. He had season highs in both his completion percentage and his passing yardage with his third-highest yards per attempt on the day, connecting both over the middle and down the field, to grandmother’s house we go.
Boy, it sure feels like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about Pickett in this column for his actual play in a positive manner. Not surprising considering his numbers in recent weeks. In the four games preceding Sunday, he was 58-for-97 for just 465 yards with one touchdown. Of course, he didn’t turn the ball over, his one saving grace. And they did go 3-1 in those games.
That made Sunday’s performance against the Cincinnati Bengals rather a nice tonic. While they don’t have a very good defense overall, and were down a starting cornerback, Pickett looked as good as he has all season.
All told, he completed 24-of-33 pass attempts for a 72.7 completion percentage, comfortably his best of the year. He threw for 278 yards, his highest mark by more than 40 yards. He kept the ball clean with his seventh consecutive game without an interception.
The only thing that was missing was a touchdown, and arguably he has the officials and head coach Mike Tomlin to blame for that. They ruled that a 15-yard pass into the end zone to WR Diontae Johnson was not completed before he lost control of the ball. It seemed as though he actually had, but Tomlin did not challenge the call on the field.
RB Jaylen Warren fumbled on the next play and the Bengals recovered, robbing Pickett of a prime scoring opportunity and making the Steelers’ 16-point output look even more meager in comparison to the quality of their play-to-play performance.
The thing is, as always in the NFL, can you do it again and again and again? This isn’t a one-time thing. The way that he played is the way Pickett is expected to play in every single game, and frequently even considerably better than he played in this one.
Pickett is the only quarterback in NFL history to have a touchdown rate of under two percent while attempting 500 or more passes in their career. He may not have thrown an interception in his last seven games, but he also only has one touchdown in his last six. He has just one touchdown pass in his last 155 attempts after having five in his first 159—which still wasn’t particularly good.
