The 2024 season is not going to be the difference in whether or not Kenny Pickett continues to have a job. But it could be the difference between the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback ever being viewed as a viable starter again or not.
In head coach Mike Tomlin’s words, this upcoming season is a “huge” one for the 2022 first-round draft pick. He essentially lost his starting job after getting injured late in the season. His sprained ankle opened the door for Mason Rudolph to step in and lead the team to the playoffs—even after Pickett got healthy.
So the overriding question this offseason is clear: Can the Steelers make Pickett an NFL starting quarterback? Most fans may have already given up on the idea. But the team hasn’t. And according to Aditi Kinkhabwala, neither have NFL talent evaluators.
“I messaged multiple people. If you were given the opportunity to quote-unquote fix Kenny Pickett, could you do it?”, she said on 93.7 The Fan yesterday with Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller. “All four of them talked about everything around him and not him”.
Asked to clarify that that means they all said yes, she responded in the affirmative. “Four different offensive minds in the NFL that I trust implicitly and feel very strongly about”, she noted; “All four of them thought it’s not really about Kenny, it’s about everything around him”.
Of course, if the Steelers didn’t think any of it was Pickett’s fault, they would have put him back in the starting lineup when he was healthy. They didn’t. He dressed as Rudolph’s backup in the must-win finale. He was on the bench when they took the field in Buffalo in the Wild Card Round. Even after a red-zone interception helped make it 21-0 Bills, Tomlin left Rudolph in there.
I think there is some universal agreement over the notion that there were many other things wrong with the offense, though. When you have an offensive coordinator who essentially elicits protests calling for him to be fired, you have a problem. Steelers fans broke out “Fire Canada” chants with regularity, even on the road.
While Canada’s system was heavily criticized, some have insisted that he was largely following marching orders. Tomlin’s priority was ball security, and Canada called a conservative offense with Pickett accordingly. Perhaps there is more than a bit of truth to that. But either way, the scheme was a huge problem.
The offensive line in the first half of the season was a huge problem, too. And sometimes in the second half. The same with the run game, though like the year before they got it together. WR Diontae Johnson and TE Pat Freiermuth both missed extended time due to injuries.
A lot of things didn’t go right irrespective of who was at quarterback. Not that that excuses Pickett’s own issues with accuracy, decision-making, pocket presence, and so on. But his lack of development also partly falls on the coaches.
I do question how many people around the league believe they could “fix” Pickett and make him a franchise quarterback. And what they might be willing to trade for him in order to give it the old college try. Just out of curiosity, of course. At first.
