On Sunday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers visit the Cleveland Browns for a rematch of the Week Two slugfest that saw two defensive touchdowns help the Steelers to a 26-22 win. There was no question that Pittsburgh’s offense struggled in that game. QB Kenny Pickett and company only generated nine total first downs, 55 yards on the ground, and 222 yards through the air while losing a fumble once and Pickett throwing one interception.
Naturally, plenty of eyes will be on how Pickett and the offense will fare against DE Myles Garrett and company this time around. The Browns are tied with the San Francisco 49ers for the fourth-fewest yards allowed per pass attempt at 5.8. The Baltimore Ravens lead the league with 4.7 yards per passing attempt. Cleveland is also tied for the third-fewest passing touchdowns allowed (nine) with teams like the Houston Texans, the Los Angeles Rams, and the New York Jets. Baltimore leads the league with seven passing touchdowns allowed.
So when Steelers sideline reporter and former OT Max Starks joined former NFL DB Dustin Fox and Nick Wilson Thursday for The Afternoon Drive on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland, the subject of Pickett’s play since Week Two and the offense as a whole this season came up. Starks expressed concerns about Pickett but is not willing to shut the door on him yet.
“I think I’ve seen more so of a plateau, if not a slight decline, with some of the decision-making,” Starks said. “I know he’s getting pieces back… I think for Kenny that this is the next step, right? We’ve now established a run game to where you have a counterbalance to the passing game. It’s not as dependent as it was so early in the year where we had to make that big play. I think for Kenny now, he needs to be able to take that jump. You’ve completed one season’s worth of games. That’s how we kind of registered it is that he hadn’t gotten through a full season as a starter and now he’s hit over that requisite amount.”
As a rookie, Pickett only started 12 games. He did not hit 17 games played until the 17-10 win over Baltimore in Week Five. In the following four games, he has posted completion rates over 60% in every game and has extended his league-leading streak of passes without throwing an interception. So in terms of games played, Pickett is four games into his second year as a starter. In fact, the Steelers have only lost once in that span, and that was to the Jacksonville Jaguars when he suffered a rib injury and did not play the entire second half.
Hence, there are positives about the lack of turnovers recently for Pickett. However, there are still legitimate concerns with Pickett’s game. He has only thrown one touchdown in the last four games and six touchdowns for the entire 2023 season. He’s only one off his season total last year, but he threw five touchdowns through the first five games and only one since.
The question then becomes is Pickett the problem or do we blame offensive coordinator Matt Canada? The calls for Canada’s job have been nearly non-stop this season. Are the overall struggles for the offense a matter of quarterback play, the play calling, or what?
“I was never on the Matt Canada train, full bore, at the beginning of the year,” Starks said. “But I think, and how I kind of phrase this on my show, once you show me the execution, then I can decide if it’s play caller. The execution issues [are] what’s troubling at first. Because when you underthrow a receiver, you overthrow the same receiver like we had last week… Now if he starts making those passes and we’re still not getting anything, or it’s short-to-intermediate routes, then we could talk about Matt Canada. But I think right now, I would say Kenny first with Matt Canada as a close second as far as why the execution’s not there.”
This is the chicken-and-the-egg question for Pittsburgh. Who is at fault for the offensive struggles this season? Is Pickett needing more seasoning or is his ceiling just not high enough for the NFL? Or is Canada’s scheme and play calling stunting both Pickett and the offense as a whole?
Now every quarterback in the league misses throws. Pickett has shown the ability to make great throws, but he’s also missing some open receivers or not even seeing them. The offensive coordinator isn’t making him miss what he’s seeing. However, there are also plenty of people who have raised issues with the play calling as well.
What Starks is saying is that he can’t make a fully accurate claim about the play calling until Pickett is executing at a better level. His completion rate in 2023 is 61.3 percent compared to 63 percent in 2022. While that might not be a major drop, Pickett did post six games with a 65-plus percent completion rate in 2022 and three games in which he completed at least 70 percent of his passes. He only has three such games over 65 percent in 2023, and two of those were in losses. He hasn’t hit 70 percent in a game yet this season.
You can have a great game plan that fails due to execution. While nearly everybody questions Canada’s scheme at some level, missing open passes will cause problems for a mostly objective evaluation. Starks believes that we will be able to evaluate Pickett better now that he has more of his weapons healthy and the running game is hitting its stride. If the offense comes alive, then we know that Pickett’s struggles were the major factor holding the team back.
However, if Pickett starts turning in games with higher completion percentages and continuing to protect the ball but the offense isn’t seeing a major uptick in scoring, then we should fully expect the “Fire Canada” chants to sound louder and louder.
