There’s an old adage in sports: winning cures all. And it’s true, generally; the only problem is that it only lasts as long as you keep winning. Excuses are easier to make for the many shortcomings of this Pittsburgh Steelers team during wins, but things get ugly in the losses.
Especially one as ugly as Sunday’s 13-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns, who are down to their backup quarterback. And especially when you can reasonably make the argument that your franchise quarterback just got outplayed by that rookie reserve.
It’s been understood that Kenny Pickett isn’t exactly putting up All-Pro numbers, but the one thing entering this season that wasn’t questioned was his ability to lead. Former Steelers CB Bryant McFadden didn’t see enough of that from him on Sunday.
“I’m not seeing a guy who’s giving the team juice on the sidelines, getting people together”, he said on the KDKA Extra Point postgame show. “I understand you’re in Year Two but you’re the face of the franchise. It’s your job to lead, especially in moments like this when you’re on the road. Get the offensive guys together. [Tell them], ‘Everybody needs to do a better job starting with me. Let’s go. We’re not losing this ball game’. Galvanize the troops. Get everybody fired up. And that’s not what we’re seeing”.
We don’t get every view of the sideline throughout the game, but there didn’t seem to be a lot to take away from the day’s broadcast to indicate Pickett rallying the troops. That would be especially necessary in a road environment on a day in which the offense isn’t producing.
As for his own performance, he only completed 15-of-28 pass attempts for 106 yards. A last-second gadget play to try to score a 75-yard touchdown with seconds left is the only reason that he actually cleared the 100-yard mark.
“The quarterback position, like it or not, is a leadership position”, noted McFadden, who spent his entire Steelers career with Ben Roethlisberger. “You have to lead, and you have to lead not just through actions but verbally as well and improve your energy because we all feed off that”.
It doesn’t seem as though the offense had much to feed on beyond RB Jaylen Warren’s second-half successes. Outside of his half a dozen or so quality runs, highlights were few and far between. The Steelers only gained 20-plus yards on three drives on the day, out of 13 possessions. And one was a two-play, 75-yard drive of which 74 came a Warren touchdown run. Only once did they sustain a drive with more than two first downs, and they gained zero first downs more often than they gained more than one.
At this point in Pickett’s career, the excuses are running out for a game like this. He talked after the game about being surprised by how the Browns defense played them, but you simply have to do better than this. And you have to lead better through it as well.
