QB Kenny Pickett will be “challenged with competition” for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting job, in the words of head coach Mike Tomlin. But what exactly does that mean? How seriously does he mean it and in what context?
“There’s obviously always competition in this thing”, he said recently, the sort of remark he makes in training camp as if it also applies to T.J. Watt. There are always players who are effectively unchallenged, but you don’t just say it. “We don’t anoint anyone”.
Bob Labriola for the team’s website, however, said he believes Tomlin means what normal people think competition means. It’s a topic that he addressed in his latest Asked and Answered segment from Jan. 23, parsing the head coach’s remarks from his end-of-season press conference.
“I don’t imagine the Steelers will approach the 2024 season with any pre-conceived notion that Pickett is going to fail, but I believe Tomlin is serious about there being a competition for the job”, he wrote. “My opinion is their preference would be to have that competition include a re-signed [Mason] Rudolph, because Tomlin admitted Rudolph has changed some of the perception based on how he performance/handled those starting assignments late in the season. It’s also important to realize there is going to be a hiring of a new offensive coordinator during the offseason as well”.
Of course, Tomlin said that the Steelers would like to re-sign Rudolph and would like him to be a part of that competition. He also said that he believes the Steelers’ 2024 starting quarterback is currently on the roster.
Pickett, Rudolph, and Mitch Trubisky are all currently under contract, though Rudolph will be an unrestricted free agent. That won’t be until the start of the new league year in March, however, at which point the Steelers may make Trubisky a salary cap casualty.
The Steelers continued to list Pickett as their first-string quarterback through the end of the season. It seemed a conscious and deliberate choice, given that he dressed as Rudolph’s backup for the final two games. They updated the roster to reflect Trubisky’s demotion but not Pickett’s.
Despite a 14-7 record in games that he starts and plays the majority of, Pickett is under heavy scrutiny entering his third season. Put simply: he can’t score very much, or at least he hasn’t in 24 career starts. He has 13 career touchdown passes on 713 attempts, an astonishingly bad number. Yet he also has seven game-winning drives.
The elephant that was tossed out of the room is former offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Tomlin said that he fired Canada midseason basically because the environment was such that Canada could no longer do his job due to the rampant scrutiny.
The Steelers still want to find out who Pickett is in a different offense, hoping that Canada was the problem. He will be afforded the chance to show them for himself with a new offensive coordinator. But it remains to be seen how long his leash is.
