Mike's Beer Bar War Room: Reasonable Year 2 expectations for Pickett taken on the South Side (War Room)

ABIGAIL DEAN / STEELERS

Kenny Pickett participating in drills during minicamp at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.

Statistically, it wasn’t very impressive at all, but Kenny Pickett had a successful rookie season. Most importantly, he showed that the NFL game wasn’t too big for him and that he clearly belonged. 

That is hurdle number one for any rookie starting quarterback and a hurdle that not every quarterback clears once they are thrown into the fire. It also is not debatable that Pickett greatly improved during his first season in the league.

But what would constitute a successful second season for Pickett? This isn’t going to be a statistical goal as much as what do we want to see from Pickett in his second year to give Steelers fans even more optimism about him and this entire team as a whole? Stats, of course, won’t be ignored and will be cited time and time again, but what should be reasonable expectations for Pickett in 2023 and is he capable of exceeding such expectations? 

Let’s dig in. 

As mentioned, Pickett noticeably improved during his rookie season. In fact, it was really a tale of two seasons for Pickett. His tape, as well as any metric available, clearly shows that he was a far better player in the second half of the 2022 season compared to the first -- although his numbers during the first half of the season were crueler to Pickett than his tape truly showed. 

Context is important here. The Steelers played a brutal slate of games during the first half of the season and Pickett was often playing from behind against strong opponents and was taking risks to try to get his team back into games. Competitiveness isn’t a problem for Pickett. 

Pickett’s first NFL action came in Week 4 against the Jets, one of the NFL’s best defenses in 2022. Pickett finished that game with zero touchdowns and three interceptions. However, two of those interceptions hit his receiver in the hands and the third was on a Hail Mary desperation play. 

Pickett did throw eight interceptions during his first five NFL games played, but again, context is important here. In those five games, the Steelers lost to the Jets and Bills, beat the Buccaneers, then lost in Miami and Philadelphia. The Steelers' point differential in those five games was -65. Including the eight he threw in those brutal contests, Pickett finished his rookie season with nine interceptions in total in 13 games played. 

On this play, Pickett has plenty of protection and time to operate from the pocket. Maybe he is a touch late with the pass and when drifting to his right and throwing across his body, Pickett’s average arm strength by NFL standards shows a bit. Pickett trusts his huge receiver (Chase Claypool) to go up and make a play. Claypool fails in that regard, but this isn’t a terrible decision by the rookie quarterback. 

In the game following the Jets loss, the Steelers were on the road in Buffalo and down by 28 points as the first half was nearing an end. That doesn’t excuse this throw, but remember, all interceptions are not created equal, and the Steelers really needed a positive play of any kind at this desperate point. Buffalo’s basic zone defense wasn’t exotic, but the Bills' underneath cornerback made an excellent play (that does happen, and defensive backs get paid too) and Pickett was unable to drive the ball into a tight window in this instance. 

Now let’s compare Pickett’s advanced metrics from the first half of the season to the second half. It is a rather remarkable turn of events even though Pickett’s box score probably did not blow anyone away. 

From Pro Football Focus, Pickett earned a 58.7 pass grade from the start of the season through Week 11. That ranked 31st. After that, his grade jumped to 88.9 for the rest of the year, which was the very best in the league. During that first half of the season, Pickett’s big time throw rate ranked 27th and his turnover worthy throw rate came in at 25th. Conversely, those two metrics ranked second and first respectively from Week 12 on. 

Talk about a tale of two seasons.

So, should the expectations for Pickett next year be right in line with these numbers from the second half of last year? That seems rather rich. But, his quick turnaround was very promising nonetheless. 

How about Pickett’s current supporting cast? Without digging too deep into it, give or take, I’d say Pickett will have about the NFL’s 12th- to 15th-best wide receiver and running back groups, around the fifth-best tight end room in the league, and about the 10th-best offensive line overall. That isn’t too shabby, but this is an offense that does currently lack superstar power. 

Pickett won’t have a Trent Williams or Jason Kelce blocking, or Travis Kelce dominating from the tight end position. The Steelers don’t have a mismatch nightmare such as Christian McCaffrey out of the backfield, or an utterly dominant outside receiver like Justin Jefferson or Ja’Marr Chase. But, the Steelers' offense also looks like a unit top to bottom that also doesn’t have an obvious hole. And, there is depth here at every position as well. 

In the 17 games this upcoming season, Pickett should have a better offensive supporting cast than his opposing quarterback in nine of those contests, and it is debatable which quarterback has better players around him in another six of those matchups including four divisional games against Baltimore and Cleveland. The Bengals have the AFC North’s best offensive supporting cast, but the other three are rather comparable all in all. 

The Steelers had a down year overall on special teams last year for Pickett, but special teams are rarely sticky from year to year in the NFL. The Steelers' defense should also be in the top half of the league -- and that is being conservative. Pickett has a good supporting cast in terms of personnel. 

How about the Steelers offensive scheme under Matt Canada? Well … that is a far less rosy situation and one that deserves much scrutiny. Much more play action would help. More advanced route concepts would help. Utilizing more in-breaking routes would help. Relying less on go routes for explosive plays would help. Setting up pass catchers to generate more yardage after the catch would help. We could go on and on about this topic and maybe that is best left for another day, but Canada needs to be on a short leash and changes must be made from what we saw schematically a year ago. 

But to be fair, Canada was working with a rookie quarterback as well as the NFL’s youngest offense overall by a very wide margin. And, the Steelers did lay the foundation of an offensive identity with their ability to run the football in the second half of the 2022 season. Scoring was down across the NFL last year and literally half of the league decided to change offensive play callers this offseason, but the Steelers decided to stay put with Canada. We shall see where it goes from here.

A strong running game in the NFL gives an offense a high floor. But, it is the passing game in this league that generally determines the ceiling. 

In what areas does Pickett need to improve? While he is terrific eluding pressure and unblocked defenders, Pickett could improve on his recognition of pressure and where it is coming from. Pickett too often invites chaos and is then forced to play out of structure. Strangely for a young quarterback, Pickett’s numbers when he wasn’t under pressure were quite poor, but his numbers when under duress were very good. 

His numbers when throwing against a two-high safety shell -- the now preferred look in the NFL -- were awful during his rookie year. His numbers when throwing deep were lackluster to be kind. But, the opposing cover men also knew that go route after go route was coming. And, go routes might be the easiest concept in football to defend, especially when it is expected. No team in the NFL ran more go routes than the Steelers last year. 

Still, Pickett completed just 38.3% of his passes that were attempted 10 yards downfield or further. That was only better than Carson Wentz and Zach Wilson -- not company you want to be keeping. 31 NFL quarterbacks threw more touchdown passes than Pickett in 2022. 

Pickett also needs to show that he can stay on the field and handle the physical rigors of playing quarterback in the NFL. Pickett’s adding of muscle, bulk and strength over his first full NFL offseason is a great step in the right direction in this regard. 

But as a passer, there are two extremely key areas in which Pickett (as is the case with most rookie quarterbacks) was really lacking last year: His red zone passing and his efficiency attacking between 10 and 20 yards downfield. These are the hardest areas of the field to consistently complete passes, but it also distinguishes the okay passers vs. the great ones at the NFL level. 

Pickett completed under 43% of his pass attempts in the red zone as well as from inside the 10-yard line. However, he only attempted 47 passes in the red zone. 19 quarterbacks had more such pass attempts, and to put it into some perspective, Patrick Mahomes led the NFL with 119 throws from inside the red zone. Pickett also ranked at the very bottom of the league amongst qualifying quarterbacks in yards per pass attempt (6.2) as well as touchdown rate, as just 1.8% of his passes resulted in a finding paydirt. 

This might not be entirely a Pickett issue, but the Steelers' offense absolutely must become more explosive going forward. Sustaining long drive after long drive without chunk plays is just too difficult to maintain at the NFL level. 

Warning, these numbers are disturbing: 

The Steelers' 53 rushes that gained 10 or more yards was middle of the pack, but their eight rushes that resulted in gains of 20 or more yards was only better than eight offenses. The Steelers' 44 pass plays that resulted in 20 or more yards was only better than eight offenses, but their three pass plays that gained 40 or more yards was last in the entire league. Worse, only Tampa Bay had a fewer percentage of their offensive snaps result in a run of 20-plus yards or a pass of 40-plus yards in 2022. 

Let’s not stop there. The Steelers ranked dead last in passing touchdown rate, as well as dead last in passing yards after the catch per completion. What's more, the Steelers scored a measly two touchdowns from outside the red zone. 

That is almost hard to fathom. Only two offenses since 2000 have scored fewer in an entire season of play from outside the 20-yard line. The Steelers averaged just 6.8 yards on their touchdowns last year. No team over the last 30 years have averaged fewer.

Again, hard to fathom. But hey, there is nowhere to go but up, right?

The Steelers' decision makers obviously recognized Pickett’s struggles in the red zone and throwing to the intermediate level of the field as well. The team added two prominent pass catchers this offseason: Allen Robinson and rookie Darnell Washington. Neither might take their new team by storm, but both Robinson and Washington do their best work in the red zone and in the intermediate levels of the field, often in contested and crowded situations. 

Robinson didn’t have many highlights in a Rams uniform, but he has consistently made plays like this over his career. Robinson has always shielded defenders well and uses his big body very effectively, particularly in the middle of the field and when things get extra condensed in the red zone. Maybe those skills will translate going forward with the Steelers. It is certainly worth the minimal risk it cost the team to acquire the once-great Robinson. 

ESPN’s Mike Clay (who does fantastic work as one of the best in the business with season-long projections and is someone that I overlapped with during my 10-year stint working for ESPN.com) has Pickett projected to attempt 497 passes, completing 320 of those for 3,417 yards through the air. Clay has Pickett’s touchdown to interception ratio at 21:12. He also projects Pickett to carry the football 59 times for 265 yards with three rushing scores. 

While that would be a nice jump from Pickett’s rookie year (with 14 more touchdown passes), personally, I think those stat projections are a bit too conservative. If you could take this projected stat line or "Go Fish," so to speak, I am going fishing to see what might be behind Door No. 2 without question. 

In short, a successful season for Pickett in his second year would have more production without question, especially in just generating points on the scoreboard. What won’t be quite as tangible, but will be every bit as important, is if Pickett can begin to really elevate those around him and get the most from his teammates. If that comes to fruition, the Steelers should be extremely happy with their second-year quarterback and the future will be very bright for this organization. 

Pickett played 804 of a possible 1,161 offensive snaps in 2022 and 20 passers in the league attempted more throws. The Steelers did win seven of Pickett’s dozen starts last year. Can they win 10 or 11 of his presumed 17 in 2023 against a far weaker schedule? That doesn’t seem all that farfetched.

Not to end on a sour note, but at this point, I don’t think the question is whether or not Pickett will be a good starting quarterback or if he will continue to improve. I very much think both will occur. If they do, that is tremendous news. 

The question is whether that is good enough to compete with the other three quarterbacks in the AFC North, as well as the signal callers leading the Chargers, Jaguars, Jets, Bills and, of course, that guy in Kansas City.

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