With Kenny Pickett benched in favor of Mason Rudolph for the final game of the season — and arguably in Week 17 as well — it is fair to wonder about Pickett’s future in Pittsburgh. He was selected in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, which signifies the Steelers intended on making him the quarterback of the future. The franchise quarterback to succeed Ben Roethlisberger. Less than two seasons later, he is riding the bench in favor of Rudolph.
Mike Florio discussed the Pickett situation Pickett on NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk Tuesday afternoon.
“In the NFL, every player has a ceiling between whatever he did in college and the Pro Football Hall of Fame and playing in the games at the NFL level is where you hit your ceiling,” Florio said in a clip of the segment posted on NFL on NBC’s YouTube channel. “I know it used to be five years to get to this point, but Kenny Pickett’s hit his ceiling.”
It used to be commonplace for Steelers draft picks to wait in the wings for multiple seasons to develop as a player before becoming a starter. Cameron Heyward, for example, didn’t get his first start in the NFL until 2013—two years after he was drafted in the first round. That was not an isolated incident either. In today’s NFL with the salary cap numbers being so high and windows to compete being so tight as a result, most first-round draft picks take over in Year One. For Pickett it took three-and-a-half games in his rookie season before the Steelers pulled the plug on QB Mitch Trubisky and started the era of him being QB1 in Pittsburgh.
He showed promise at the end of his rookie season, winning five of the final six games he started. He also showed a knack for fourth-quarter comebacks that excited the media and fans alike. The arrow was pointing up and that carried over into the preseason where Pickett was a part of five offensive drives and the offense scored five touchdowns. It was nearly a perfect preseason for Pickett.
The regular season did not carry forward that momentum as Pickett and the offense struggled to get anything going all season long up until the high ankle sprain that essentially ended his time as a starter, at least for the 2023 season. It is difficult to give a definitive evaluation on Pickett and whether he has reached his ceiling as a quarterback due to him playing under offensive coordinator Matt Canada for the majority of his starts.
There are varying opinions on whether the team will go back to him to start the 2024 season. Rudolph’s performance against the Ravens in Week 18 and any subsequent playoff games might have an effect on that, so until those events are out of the way it is difficult to speculate on the future. That said, Pickett played some of his best football in his last full game in the Week 12 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, the first game without Canada. It seems unlikely that Pickett has seen his last opportunity in Pittsburgh.
