Former Pittsburgh Steelers LB Chad Brown was a guest on the Go Long! podcast, hosted by Tyler Dunne, and he offered his thoughts on Kenny Pickett and what he could become as a quarterback in the future. Brown said that while Pickett likely will never become as good as Ben Roethlisberger, he can still grow into a good quarterback if the Steelers play well around him.
“I think they’ll still need to play Steeler Football. Is Kenny Pickett going to go out and become Big Ben Part Two, or resemble any of these quarterbacks who we think of as all-time greats, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning? No. I don’t see that necessarily in his future, but if the Steelers play good defense, they run the ball well, they run the ball well enough to set up some play-action passes, yeah, then I think Kenny Pickett can continue to grow into the role,” Brown told Dunne. “But I think to expect him to be able to drop back 40 times a game and deliver it all over the field, I don’t think that’s quite within his skill set currently, and I’m not sure if long-term he can actually become that kind of quarterback.”
Nothing that Pickett has shown so far has said that he’s going to become a top-tier, elite sort of quarterback. But that doesn’t mean the Steelers can’t win with him. He’s been clutch, leading six fourth-quarter comebacks and seven game-winning drives in his career, including three this season. The Steelers are 7-4 with Pickett not playing all that great for most of this season, so Brown’s thought process here makes a lot of sense.
If the Steelers continue to build a good defense, Pickett can do enough to win. Given that rookies Keeanu Benton and Joey Porter Jr. look like really good long-term pieces and the team still has T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Alex Highsmith locked up long-term, that seems to be a safe bet. The run game has also taken off in recent weeks, and both Jaylen Warren and Najee Harris have at least another season with Pittsburgh beyond 2023.
They’ve also focused on bolstering the offensive line in recent years with signings like James Daniels and Isaac Seumalo while drafting Broderick Jones in the first round. They’re building a really solid and talented core around Pickett, so even if he never does become an elite quarterback, he’s still going to be good enough to win as Pittsburgh’s starter.
Pickett is coming off his best game of the season, throwing for 278 yards in a Week 12 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. If Pickett can string more of those sorts of games together, his long-term outlook is going to be a lot better than it was just a few weeks ago. We’ll see what the rest of the season has in store for Pickett, but I think it’s fair to say that while he may never be at the level of Roethlisberger and be an MVP candidate each season, he’s going to be good enough for the Steelers to win with if they play their brand of football around him.
