Kenny Pickett has had an interesting second season of his career, to say the least. He started off on fire in the preseason, leading nothing but touchdown drives, and looked poised to take a huge leap forward in Year Two. Now eight games into the season, it is clear that the huge step forward was putting too much weight on preseason performance. In 2023, he has completed 141 passes on 230 attempts for 1,490 yards, six touchdowns, and four interceptions.
That isn’t to say it’s all been bad. He has continued his ways of winning games from behind and leading fourth-quarter comeback drives in a way that doesn’t feel sustainable, but somehow has been. His game-winning drive against the Tennessee Titans improved his record to 10-3 in games decided by seven points or less. The Steelers are 5-3 this season despite having a negative 30 point differential on the year, but the team is still very well positioned to push for a playoff spot with a perfect record in the AFC North so far. Part of the reason they are able to stick around in games and win in the fourth quarter is the ball security of Pickett.
This season, he has thrown just four interceptions in eight games. There have been a few more interceptable passes that were dropped by opposing defenses, but the same can be said of most quarterbacks. Pickett’s interception rate of 1.7 percent in Year Two is on pace to be tied for the 10th-best mark among second-year quarterbacks dating back to 2000 with a minimum of 230 pass attempts. In fact, if you look at his whole career, which is a 20-game sample size so far, he has 10 interceptions on 606 passes, in line with his second-year average of 1.7 percent. That is good enough for the fifth-lowest mark since 2013. In Ben Roethlisberger’s Super Bowl-winning second season, he had double Pickett’s interception rate at 3.4 percent, for comparison.
Since 2022, the Steelers have a record of 10-1 in games they don’t turn the ball over. When they do, their record is 4-10. While the margin for error is low, Pickett has been able to protect the ball and limit critical mistakes, which is one big reason for his .600 win percentage as a starting quarterback in the NFL.
