With the Pittsburgh Steelers’ interest in quarterback Russell Wilson, it’s raised questions about how much faith the team truly has in quarterback Kenny Pickett. Pickett struggled in 2023, leading to offensive coordinator Matt Canada getting fired ahead of Week 12. But ESPN’s Brooke Pryor thinks the issues went beyond Pickett and Canada and said that it’s a full organizational failure that Pickett continued to make the same mistakes.
“I think it also goes beyond of ‘it’s just Kenny Pickett or Matt Canada’. To me, it’s an organizational failure around Kenny Pickett because when I look at the trajectory that he had at the end of his rookie season, he was playing a lot better. And you look at the way he was playing in the preseason. That preseason fools gold. To me, something happened with his development as a quarterback and his development in the pocket. He was making the same mistakes over and over again in terms of rolling into pressure. It was painful to watch at times because it felt like he just wasn’t taking a step forward,” Pryor told Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio yesterday.
Pryor said she feels like there was a disconnect between what Matt Canada told Pickett and what Mike Sullivan, Pittsburgh’s quarterbacks coach last season, was telling him. Either way, Pickett was a mess for most of the 2023 season, rolling into pressure, as Pryor said, and he also struggled with his accuracy.
After getting injured in Week 13, Pickett’s season would end as Mason Rudolph’s run over the last three games to get the Steelers into the playoffs earned him the chance to start the team’s Wild Card round playoff matchup. With Pittsburgh’s interest in Wilson, the Steelers are showing that they might not be as committed to Pickett as they seem.
Whether or not Pickett was getting mixed feedback from his coaches on what to do, the fact of the matter is he just wasn’t very good last season. However, Canada’s offense had a lot of issues and didn’t really help the quarterback out, so I do believe that the Steelers want to at least see if Pickett can grow and develop outside of that offense. He only got a game and a half this season without Canada calling the plays, and his performance in Week 12 was one of, if not the best, games of his entire career, but the Steelers also only managed to put up 16 points.
I don’t necessarily think Pickett’s struggles alone are an indictment on the organization, but holding onto Canada last season was a mistake. A move intended to build continuity with Pickett, but what good is continuity in a bad offense? The decision to keep Canada into 2023 is the biggest mistake the organization made with Pickett’s development, but if he continues to struggle the way he did in 2023, the decision to draft him at all will go down as a mistake. So, I do agree with Pryor that Pickett’s struggles were part of a larger issue, but I do think that Canada was the main issue.
I still find it difficult to believe that Wilson is coming in to really compete with Pickett. If he’s coming to Pittsburgh, it’s to start. So, I think we’ll really find out how the Steelers feel about Pickett depending on what they do with Wilson. Honestly, Pittsburgh’s flirtation with Wilson makes my head spin after everything they said about Pickett this offseason and also their talk just last week at the Combine about wanting to bring back Rudolph.
Maybe Wilson is more open to pure competition than I think, but I still think the best course forward for the Steelers is to give Pickett a legitimate chance to start. He wasn’t good last season, and he’s an incredibly frustrating player to watch at times. But I think entering Year Three, the Steelers need to see what he looks like outside of Canada’s offense in a larger sample, and we’ll see if that happens if they do sign Wilson. It’s a make-or-break year no matter what for Pickett, and this upcoming week with free agency opening could determine a lot about Pittsburgh’s intentions at quarterback for the 2024 season.
