CBS announcers Ian Eagle and Charles Davis are scheduled to call their second-straight game with the Steelers on one sideline, having also called last Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers and now will be on the call for Pittsburgh’s game this weekend against the Cleveland Browns.
Eagle recently appeared as a guest on The Bullpin with Adam the Bull to talk about the Browns ahead of Sunday’s matchup, discussing the fallout with QB Deshaun Watson out for the season and rookie QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson stepping in to take his place. Eagle also talked about the Steelers and their quarterback Kenny Pickett, stating that the young passer will eventually need to show more to earn the trust of the coaching staff and win games with his arm.
“At some point, they’re gonna have to cut it loose and allow Kenny Pickett to try and pick apart a defense,” Eagle said said on The Bullpin with Adam the Bull podcast. “Matt Canada… we know that he’s gotten a lot of criticism in the Pittsburgh area. They are not at a place yet where they fully trust the second-year QB. That’s just my opinion just watching the games. And if you really want to compete, at some point, you’re going to have to get to that place.”
Through the first nine games of the season, Pickett has looked fairly pedestrian outside of some impressive drives late in the fourth quarter to help seal wins against the Ravens, Rams, and Titans. He will disappear for large portions of the game, making small mistakes like not going through his reads, missing open receivers, and bailing from pockets early when he can step up and throw the ball downfield. Steelers Depot’s own Alex Kozora has pointed out that Pickett needs to have the offense be in a rhythm in order to warm up and be successful, but that is a concern as the offense has gotten off to a hot start the last two weeks, but he still played poorly when everything was going right.
The notion was that Pittsburgh was going to take the training wheels off Pickett this season and let him have more command of the offense in Year Two. Halfway through the season, we have yet to see Pickett really take command of this offense. It looks similar to last year where everything was reigned in and kept super conservative to keep things easy and simple for Pittsburgh’s quarterback.
We have seen Pickett operate in the clutch, but he must start displaying the ability to put together a full game where he can lead an offense through the air, not just rely on the running game and defense to get it done for the Steelers. That’s why head coach Mike Tomlin has played so conservatively, knowing the current limitations of his quarterback. He has his team play in a way to mask those limitations of Pickett and the offense as a whole under OC Matt Canada.
Eagle is right in saying that eventually the Steelers will have to cut Pickett loose and see what he can do to opposing defenses as a passer. Sure, Pittsburgh can win games with Pickett throwing for 126 yards and no touchdowns like it did against the Packers, but that caps your ceiling as a franchise and leaves you little to no room for error on either side of the football. The Steelers need to win games because of Pickett, not in spite of him. He has shown that he can put together a drive in crunch time, but the heavyweights in the AFC aren’t going to wait around for him to warm up as they will run up the score on Pittsburgh if they get the chance. Pickett must show that he can compete in these type of games the way Ben Roethlisberger used to, showing the Steelers that he can be that guy they can rely on to lead them, even when everything else isn’t perfect around him.
