It’s unclear when the Pittsburgh Steelers will see QB Kenny Pickett again. The plan is for him to return later this season, Mike Tomlin telling reporters Monday Pickett’s ankle surgery is not season-ending. But until that point, his last reps will have come in the first half of Sunday’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals. And his performance wasn’t a note to go out on.
After a solid showing in Week 12’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals, Pickett took steps backward before being knocked out of Sunday’s game on a 3rd-and-goal scramble. His stat line doesn’t look bad, 7-of-10 for 70 yards, but his play was middling, especially after the team’s first possession.
In his weekly press conference, Tomlin admitted Pickett has missed chances in the passing game, both against the Cardinals and over the course of the season.
“There’s been some opportunities that have been missed in the passing game,” he said via the team’s YouTube channel. “But that’s just a part of our collective growth. That’s every week.”
In fairness, missed chances happens to virtually every quarterback and every passing game. With the benefit of hindsight and All-22, the film can be nitpicked and second guessed. Still, in the Cardinals game specifically, there were chances for more plays than what Pickett made.
As Chris Hoke pointed out, on the play Pickett was injured, it appeared WR Calvin Austin III was coming open across the left side. But Pickett never looked that way, attempting to scramble up the middle instead. He was stopped short of the goal line while suffering the injury that led to his surgery.
Watch Austin jet across and be left alone in the end zone, throwing his hands in the air.
Earlier in the game, Pickett bailed on a clean pocket and didn’t hit his checkdown to a seemingly open RB Najee Harris (though we don’t have the All-22 view to see the entire defensive structure and picture). Pickett escaped to his left, couldn’t find an option, and ran out of bounds for a yard. Pittsburgh failed to convert on 3rd and 2 and punted.
While this can be applied to any quarterback over a large enough volume of plays, it has been a recurring problem for Pickett. Now, the excuse of Matt Canada no longer applies. Tomlin may look at the “collective” and their growth, but it starts with one man. The quarterback.
Pickett has to work through his progressions better. There have been signs of progress at that during the year — he was finding his checkdown more often out of the bye week — but when he gets in trouble, his old habits pop back up. Whether it’s spinning into pressure, getting tunnel vision, or locking onto a read, they’re things he has to clean up once he returns to the lineup. Whenever that is.
