The 2023 version of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense was painful to watch. There were many factors that fed into the subpar product that was put out on the field, but among those was the performance of QB Kenny Pickett in his second season. His completion percentage dropped from Year 1 to Year 2, bottoming out at 62 percent last year. And he regressed in both his passing yards and touchdowns with 2,070 and six respectively. Regardless of the offensive coordinator issues or the offensive line getting off to a slow start, it was nowhere near good enough for the Steelers to run it back for a third season with him as the starting quarterback.
That is why the Steelers jumped on the opportunity to sign Russell Wilson for a measly $1.21 million on a one-year deal. He is the opposite of Pickett in a lot of ways, and Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis put out a new stat on X that quantifies one of the biggest differences.
Pickett was among the least accurate passers in 2023 while Wilson was one of the most accurate.
The stat shows the percent of incompletions due to inaccurate passes. Pickett is near the top of the list with 35 percent of his incompletions due to accuracy issues. Wilson is near the bottom of the list with just 25.3 percent of his incompletions due to inaccurate passes.
If you do the math, that means 43 of Pickett’s 123 incompletions were due to inaccurate passes. Wilson had 38 of his 150 incompletions due to inaccurate passes.
Beyond the incompletions, the accuracy issues have a number of other effects on the offense’s performance. A quarterback can complete a pass with an inaccurate throw, but that will often limit the potential for their receivers to gain yards after the catch (YAC). It is no surprise that Kenny Pickett was tied for the 25th-fewest YAC per completion with 5.2 while Wilson had the eighth most with 5.8. Wilson had 1,735 total YAC on his completions compared to just 1,050 for Pickett. A large part of that is accuracy of the passes.
Players like George Pickens, who proved he can be a weapon after the catch, should be able to thrive with Wilson’s accuracy over what he was getting from Pickett a season ago.
