The 2023 season was disastrous for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett, his second season with the Black and Gold.
Pickett struggled with accuracy, wasn’t all that aggressive pushing the ball down the field and really seemed to handicap the Steelers’ passing game overall. Injuries were an issue for Pickett, too, as his pocket presence was a mess, leading to him taking some bad hits in the pocket and even scrambling into sacks.
When he suffered a serious ankle injury in Week 13 against the Arizona Cardinals that needed tightrope surgery to speed up the recovery process, Pickett found himself on the bench. Once he got healthy, he never returned to the lineup as head coach Mike Tomlin and the Steelers stuck with Mason Rudolph, putting Pickett’s status moving forward in question.
Though the Steelers have thrown public support behind Pickett as the starter moving forward, quarterback remains a major need. The 33rd Team’s Derrik Klassen certainly believes that, ranking Pickett as one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL entering the 2024 offseason.
Pickett landed at No. 31 out of 32 NFL starters in Klassen’s rankings, only ahead of New England’s Bailey Zappe.
Yikes.
“The Steelers were sold a bill of goods that Kenny Pickett would be their version of [Joe] Burrow. That simply has not come to be,” Klassen writes. “At this stage, Pickett remains frenetic in the pocket and undisciplined in how he reads the field. Throws over the middle are completely absent from his game, and it’s clear he is only comfortable throwing quick game and vertical shots down the sideline.
“That’s not nearly enough of a formula to make for a good quarterback, considering his decision-making and iffy accuracy.”
When the Steelers landed Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, there was hope that he could be that slightly lesser version of Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, a guy with not the strongest arm in the world or the biggest frame but one who could win consistently with his accuracy, processing and football IQ.
That hasn’t happened — at all.
Pickett has largely been unsure of himself, rarely pushing the ball down the field and seldom taking chances with the football to make plays in an effort to avoid mistakes. While he has had a very low number of turnovers in the NFL, playing turnover-free football doesn’t mean he’s playing good football.
Being sandwiched in between Zappe and Las Vegas’ Aidan O’Connell is awful territory for Pickett to be in.
With offensive coordinator Arthur Smith now in the fold, the pressure ratchets up for Pickett in 2024. It’s a make-or-break season for him. The Steelers might have some internal belief in him still, and have stated it publicly, but it won’t preclude them from looking for an upgrade.
