Despite winning a tough, Thursday Night Football game against the Tennessee Titans, Pittsburgh Steelers fans are still massaging their temples after watching another week of inconsistent offensive play.
But maybe, just maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed on the television. The offense scored on the first drive, the running game had life, and Matt Canada called perhaps his best game as the Steelers’ offensive coordinator. Unfortunately, the team still only scored 20 points, so the blame needs to fall somewhere and in this case, it was quarterback Kenny Pickett.
The 25-year-old was off early, missing routine throws that would have put his team ahead of the sticks. Instead of passing judgment, it’s important to have the context that Pickett was dealing with an injury to his ribs that kept him out of the second half against the Jaguars just four days prior. For that, former Buffalo Bills general manager Doug Whaley believes Steelers fans should admire the young quarterback.
“He is showing why he’s beloved in Pittsburgh,” Whaley said on WPXI’s postgame Steelers show Thursday night. “He gritted it out. That’s what us Pittsburgh people do. When things are down, when you’re not feeling your best, you step up instead of going home crying.”
Pickett’s toughness can not be questioned throughout his brief NFL career. He has dealt with a laundry list of injuries in his first two seasons, consistently returning to the field after a short time. Perhaps that is why he missed a few of those early throws.
“Kenny did miss some throws but again when it comes down to it, he gritted it out and drove those Steelers down when it counted most,’’ said Whaley, a former Steelers executive. “We know how hard that is in those situations to control your emotions and your adrenaline. But in this case [with rib injury] that adrenaline deadened that pain and made him focus even more and that’s one of the reasons I think they got it into the end zone and secured that victory because of that mental toughness and his intestinal fortitude.”
Injury or not, the former Pitt quarterback did once again flash his ability to excel in the clutch, orchestrating another late-game touchdown drive to put the score out of reach. A beautiful throw to Diontae Johnson highlighted this, even causing Whaley to compare “Dame Time,” the term used to describe Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard’s propensity to rise to the occasion in the fourth quarter, to “Pickett Time.”
“That throw shows why you’ve got to believe in this guy and why he has ice running through his veins. Dame time, Kenny Pickett time” Whaley said
Let’s just hope Pickett can have more success than the seven-time All-NBA player come the postseason.
