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Brooke Pryor, ESPN Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — Five plays before Kenny Pickett stepped up to the line of scrimmage to change the pass protection and give George Pickens his game-winning route, the second-year quarterback made another play in the win against the Baltimore Ravens that showed a flash of why the Pittsburgh Steelers used their first-round pick on him a year ago.
Trailing by two and facing a third-and-long from beyond field goal range, Pickett corralled the snap from center Mason Cole and rifled a pass to receiver Allen Robinson II as the Ravens pressure bared down.
With safety Kyle Hamilton rocketing up the middle and inside linebacker Patrick Queen closing in from the side, Pickett had just 2.44 seconds to make a decision. Rather than break the pocket to buy himself time and make a potentially negative play worse, Pickett stood tall, let the play develop and took his shot. It paid off with a 10-yard completion and a massive third down conversion on what turned out to be a game-winning drive.
“He hung in there and was able to get that ball off just in the nick of time before [Hamilton] got to him to hit A-Rob near our sideline,” quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan said. “That was a big conversion.”
But 17 starts into Pickett’s professional career — a full NFL season — those moments have been just that: moments, brief peeks of potential that barely wallpaper over mediocre outings. Just three months ago, it appeared Pickett was on the precipice of the vaunted second-year leap with a near-perfect preseason.
While pundits point to predictable play-calling under the direction of offensive coordinator Matt Canada as the heart of the Steelers’ struggles, not all of the quarterback’s shortcomings can be laid at the feet of the coordinator.
“Kind of the crazy thing is that — and I think we saw it last year as a rookie — he was having a little trouble identifying stuff and kind of getting to the right spot early in the process,” Hall of Fame quarterback and NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner told ESPN. “He made up for it because he made so many great plays on the move and doing some of those things a year ago.
“And then you come back to this year and in the preseason, I thought that was the thing that he did so well, is that he seemed to recognize coverage to see what teams were doing to get to the right side or to the right guy very early in the process. And it’s what had me so excited … I liked the way he handled himself in the pocket. I like his playmaking ability and that was the step I thought he needed to take this year. … And so you kind of think, OK, now we’re going to put it all together in the regular season. And from game one against the 49ers, he has struggled with that.”
For Pickett to channel that late-2022 and preseason form, the Steelers quarterback has to do a better job of working through his reads, of getting his eyes to the right spots, Warner said. It hasn’t helped, though, that Pickett and the Steelers have faced the top-three passing defenses in their first five games.
“[Playing quarterback[ is knowing where you need to start based on what the defense is doing to you,” Warner said. “And he struggled a little bit with that here early in the season, and that’s going to get you in trouble. The game’s fast and you’re playing against good defenses. Trying to play catch-up when you don’t see things and identify things quickly leads to struggles no matter who you are.”
Through five games, Pickett has a total QBR of 33.5, ranking 32nd this season, down from 53.6 a season ago. His completion percentage is also down, dropping from 63% to 59.7%.
“It’s things like routes and timing and spacing,” Pickett said, explaining the numbers. “It all works together. So that’s always the key in the passing game, everything working together — protection, and guys are on the right routes, and I got to put the ball where it needs to be. So we got to get right in those three phases and expect those numbers to go up. It helps with 18 [wide receiver Diontae Johnson, out since Week 1 with a hamstring injury] coming back.”
Asked what he wanted to improve on most prior to the Week 5 win against the Ravens, Pickett was succinct: consistency.
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“I want to be consistently good, continue to be the guy that these guys can rely on,” Pickett said Oct. 4. “And it works as a team game. It’s the ultimate team game. We get the line, the receivers, the backs, myself to all push the offense where we need to be. But I want to push for very high-level consistency.” Most glaringly, Pickett — and the offense — is at its least consistent on opening drives. A season ago, Pickett’s first drives weren’t great: 54 QBR, 5.4 yards per attempt, 64% completion percentage and just one touchdown. But through five games of 2023, he’s even worse: 3 QBR, 2.0 yards per attempt, 44% completion percentage and two interceptions.
“I think we have to collectively start fast and there’s always going to be two sides to that story,” Sullivan said. “We have to — all of us — do a better job from a coaching standpoint and schematic standpoint, putting guys in position and then we have to be able to execute, and we can’t have one without the other and we’re continuing to work.”
The good news, as Pickett noted, is that some help is on the way. The Steelers have opened the 21-day practice window for wide receiver Diontae Johnson.
Without Johnson, who led the Steelers with 882 receiving yards and 86 receptions last season, the offense ranks second-to-last in receiving yards. Steelers receivers are also tied for the least amount of separation through six weeks, getting just 3.1 yards of separation, and the Steelers lead the league in tight window targets at 27%, meaning 27% of Pickett’s throws are to receivers who have less than one yard of separation from the nearest defender, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
“Each guy does different things really well, and Diontae brings another element with his route running,” Pickett said. “His ability to get separation and get open is awesome.”
The fastest and easiest way for Pickett to resolve his accuracy issues is to quickly get the ball in the hands of Steelers’ playmakers like Johnson. That means shorter, easier throws followed by a hearty dose of YAC. Through five games, the Steelers are in the bottom-third of the league in yards after catch with 558 of their 1,045 receiving yards coming after the catch. Before his injury early in Week 1, Johnson had 48 receiving yards, and more than half came after the catch.
“From a route-running standpoint, me being able to get open easily, just giving that comfort for Kenny out there, knowing that he can rely on his guys and knowing who’s going to be open each down and distance,” Johnson said, explaining how he can help the offense. “It gives the offense a spark. We can play fast knowing Kenny is comfortable that he’s got his guys back.”
Though Pickett has an inconsistent body of work, his coaches and teammates consistently praise him for possessing the intangibles of an NFL quarterback that help them in the biggest moments.
“The thing that we’re most pleased with is when the game is on the line … there is a calm, there’s a poise, there’s a confidence that he has,” Sullivan said. “And it picks up right where it left off last year, which was something that you want to have.”
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In 17 starts, Pickett has five game-winning drives and four fourth-quarter comebacks, including the 42-yard touchdown throw to Pickens against the Ravens in Week 5. His completion percentage on final drives of 2023 is up from 71% in 2022 to 80% in 2023. He’s also thrown one touchdown on a final drive in 2023, while throwing two touchdowns to three interceptions on such drives in 2022.
“I’m comfortable in those moments,” Pickett said. “I think we’re comfortable as a team. Everyone’s confident in each other and what we’re doing and we have belief that everyone’s going to do their job to go win. I think that’s a positive.”
And to Warner, it’s those moments that signal Pickett still has plenty of NFL potential, even if he hasn’t had a rapid, linear development.
“He’s still a young guy, still hasn’t played a lot of football,” Warner said. “When you’re with an organization, you hold on to all the positive things that you see. You go back to the preseason and go, ‘OK, I saw him do it. I saw him recognize it. I saw him get to the right guy. I saw him go get touchdowns on every drive they had. I’ve seen him do it at times. We got to figure out why he’s not doing it all the time.
“There’s enough there to see where you still stay optimistic and excited because you’re winning games, you’re having success, you’re seeing those intangibles. You’ve got all this stuff to build off of … we’ve seen him do it at times, so he keeps us excited and believing that it’s in there, that he’s capable of that stuff. We just need to figure out how to get it out of him.”
