QB Analysis

This 27 year old rookie went to Pitt. the fans will make any excuse they can for him playing 100% below the line because of that. Right now, Kenny is very bad. Historically bad rookie numbers. He may get better, he may not.. probably not ..and only mouth breathers use Peyton Manning, Bradshaw, and Josh Allen being bad their first season to cope with Kenny sucking eggs. The homers are so bad for Kenny that they think Ben was just some scrub his rookie year. Please go back and watch him play and check out the W's. Ben was an effing gamer and you could see it really quick

 

Well, I do have a deviated septum and allergies, so sometimes I do breathe through my mouth, but name-calling doesn't really support your piss-poor argument very well. Getting the guy's age wrong doesn't help your cause, either.

I couldn't care less where he went to college. I know more about him because he went to Pitt, but I have zero loyalty to the university. What intelligent people do is look at how quarterbacks develop historically and in more recent seasons and learn from it, something you seem to be incapable of doing.

Manning is a great example, not that I expect Pickett to be Manning. He was an example of a very intelligent quarterback who had the experience to be pro-ready, yet he was bad as a rookie.

Allen is a good reminder that patience is important with young quarterbacks. He didn't really start to play like a star until his third season.

Bradshaw really isn't a good comparison. The game has changed too much since the start of his career over 50 years ago.

You clearly don't get how Roethlisberger fits into the discussion, either, so let me help you out. Roethlisberger played with an outstanding offensive line that enabled a consistent running game when he was a rookie. He also had a great defense that gave up 30 points only twice all season, never more than 33, keeping the Steelers in every game. They asked him to be a game manager, with the occasional clutch drive. He never threw more than 28 passes in a regular-season game as a rookie, and that wasn't until Week 14.

Pickett is playing behind a weak offensive line in an offense that didn't run the ball worth a damn until two weeks ago. He has an erratic defense that gave up 35 or more points in there of his six starts. He was asked to throw 52 passes in his first NFL start, more than Roethislberger attempted in his first two starts combined. Roethlisberger didn't attempt 50 passes in a game until his third season in the league.

The point is that people expecting Pickett to play as well as Roethlisberger did as a rookie are showing their ignorance of the situations each quarterback faced.

 

To even hint that under the same circumstances (i.e. good OL, good coaching, good D, good running), Kenny will be close to Ben is comical.

Ben had a good 100 times more raw talent than Pickett. Absolutely no way Pickett wins 15 games in 2004 or the SB in 2005 if he got teleported back then.

People should just not expect Ben like performance from Pickett regardless of who's on the team or who's coaching.

 

Who implied that? I don't know his upside, but neither do you. I do understand that quarterback upside is determined more by what is between the ears than physical talent.

My point was that people here seem to think a quarterback has to be very good from day one to turn out to be worthy of a first-round pick. That simply isn't true. Also, comparing those two as rookies is misleading because Roethlisberger's situation was so much more favorable. I'm sorry that logic escaped you.

 

I thought He had a few great throws last week....problem is He had some I was like scratching My head at. I do believe I'm seeing improvement every week(except one)....right now that's all I ask. If He honestly takes this all seriously, and works at it He can be good...., but He must continue to work on everything He's not good at. I believe He has the mind for it, and IMO that's the number 1 thing in a Qb.

 

Most of us just recognize it wasn’t a great pass

But any pass that makes a touchdown is good

 

If you don't see that saying "comparing those two as rookies is misleading because Roethlisberger's situation was so much more favorable" implies that under the same situation they will perform similarly, then logic isn't your strong suit.

Change your comment to "Pickett would be a lot better than he is today if he had the same situation as Ben", and you're logically correct.

 

Well, it doesn’t.

 

Actually, the latter is exactly what is implied by my post, not the former. My point that is that I think many of the people ready to call Pickett a bust after six games were spoiled by a Hall of Fame quarterback who walked into a far superior situation as a rookie than what Pickett is facing now.

 

Moore sucks. He seemed to progress a little late last season, but if anything, he is getting worse as this season goes on, and that is making Pickett's job a hell of a lot more difficult.

I agree that Pickett missed some throws he should make. The deep ball to Pickens was one, though it would have been called back anyway. He had Haris wide open for a decent gain on first-and-25 and inexplicably threw it way off target. I'm sure there were more that I'm not remembering. I have only watched it once so far.

 

I can see Pickett’s confidence level declining week to week and I believe the primary reason is he doesn’t feel comfortable behind that sub par offensive line. He’s not stepping up into the pocket now like he was doing earlier in the season and has become very skittish. The pathetic excuse for an OC isn’t helping matters either. I’m sorry, but I don’t trust Tomlin AT ALL to oversee the development of the young QB. Rooney better dang well make sure that a quality offensive minded coach is brought in next season to work with Pickett. The team has a lot invested in him at this point and by the end of this disastrous season he may already be a rehab project.

 

He's not wrong. If you ignore, you're just taking your ball and going home.

I think we'd have been better off fixing the OL in 2022 draft, but we drafted Pickett. We just about have to draft OL/DL/CB/ILB with the first 3 or 4 picks in 2023, so we wont be taking a shot on a top rated 2023 rookie QB (too bad, there are four or five better than Pickett ever was). We just have to hope that Canada is part of the problem and is sent packing and that Pickett works his tail off in the off-season to get better. I don't think he is a franchise QB or even above average (looking forward), but he could be adequate/average/game manager with time and practice. We'll need a lights out D and good OL/running game to win with Pickett...doable, but a lot will have to go right with draft picks, free agents and OC/DC/HC hires.

 

I'm not Peyton Manning-esque on the finer points of QB play. I'm confident no one here is. I base what I see on having watched the game for 50 years. I don't know what the Steelers have with Kenny Pickett. He hasn't been good or bad, he's been a rookie. I can't understand why people would have such high expectations, especially considering what he has to work with. This game chews up rookie QB's and spits them out. I'm not saying he's the heir apparent, a bust or a journeyman. What I am saying is that I'm comfortable enough as a Steeler fan first and a football fan second to wait out the storm and see if he'll be a capable starter moving forward. This season was lost before it started. The list of "ifs" of things that had to go right was just too much to overcome. I didn't expect a playoff appearance or a winning record. I've seen enough pro ball that I felt confident that this wasn't a very good football team. But I'm okay with it. As a fan one has to accept that there are going to be peaks and valleys. I'm patient enough to wait to see what happens the rest of this season and beyond.

 

Actually....only mouth breathers write him off after 6 starts and say things like he sucks eggs.

 

"they're showing their ignorance...."
You're being too kind. These people are assholes. Period.

 

I listened to a local talk radio discussion of Zach Wilson today that got me thinking about how Steelers fans are reacting to Pickett. Wilson is getting more attention this week because the Jets wasted a dominant defensive performance Sunday by scoring only three points and Wilson made an ass of himself in the post-game press conference because he refused to be accountable for playing like crap. There is talk of him being benched this week.

The hosts were talking about how Wilson has been held back by them asking him to be more of a game manager and that they need to let him cut loose to see what they have. I'm wondering if they were right. I keep thinking of Roethlisberger starting as a game manager. Some other top quarterbacks did the same thing. Take the pressure off early, then add more as he matures. I think that is what they should be doing with Pickett, and the offense has been trending that way the last couple of weeks after having him throw way too much in his first few starts.

Sometimes athletes need to get the little things right first. I'll take an example from baseball. Austin Riley was terrible when he first got to the majors. Then in 2021, he stopped swinging for the fences and started taking more walks. He wasn't hitting much at first, but eventually, the power came along, too. He needed to step back to go forward, and now he is one of the best power hitters in MLB.

I wonder which is the best approach. Is it better to see Pickett cut loose and live with the inevitable turnovers? Or is it better to rely more heavily on the run and take some pressure off him for now? I tend toward the latter, but that is far from a sure thing.

 

Too kind? That is not something often said of me.

 

Wow! This season is worse than I think! Kenny has aged THREE years already?

 

I tried to be generous and take that as hyperbole, but given the quality of the rest of his post, I just can't.

 

Ben had way more talent and physical abilities than Kenny ever will. Ben was clutch and made BEAUTIFUL throws his rookie year and won a lot of games . What was the Steelers record the year prior? Are they winning 15 games with Maddox if he doesn’t get hurt ? No. It’s 2022, 50 passes isn’t crazy anymore. Kenny spent 6 years at Pitt and was supposed to be the most pro ready and clearly he’s not. For every Peyton or Josh Allen , there’s hundreds more Zach Wilsons or Josh Rosens. Cope harder. Quit making excuses because he was good for your school one year in a weak conference.

 

Yes, Ben's TD/INT ratio was better. I was referencing his percentage of passes that ended up an interception, not the TD/INT ratio. Kenny has an INT% of 3.4%. Ben's career mark was 2.5%, but he spent most of his career there or better. However, Ben's first three years were 3.7%, 3.4%, and 4.9%. So technically, in a better offense, he threw a higher percentage of interceptions than Kenny is throwing now. KP just looks worse statistically bc the offense is worse and he is throwing less TD's than INT's. KP also has a higher overall INT number due to throwing 39.5 times per start, while Ben threw 22.5 times per start over his first two seasons.

The whole point was to say that Kenny isn't throwing picks at a higher rate than Ben was for Ben's first few years in the league. The only difference between the two is that Ben played on great teams early in his career and he managed those games well (and won a lot of big games), while KP is playing on a much worse team and offense. Kenny could be having a Ben like rookie season if he had a great team around him, but he doesn't, so we will never know. The main argument I'm making is that I don't think there's any reason to be less excited about KP than we were about Ben in year 1.

 

If you think its easy to go from playing at Pitt to playing in the NFL, you're wrong. You just cant expect a kid that played in the ACC last year to be NFL ready day 1, idc how old he is. Almost no QB's come in as rookies and take bad teams to become winners immediately. It's funny you bring up Allen and P. Manning as both of them struggled early in their career and then came on to become great QB's shortly after. Peyton in year 2 and Allen in year 3.

Ben's talents were different. Kenny is a far better athlete than Ben (which is important in today's NFL). Ben was VERY clutch, but its a lot easier to be clutch and win games with a good team around him. They aren't the same player and cant be judged side by side since their year 1 circumstances were so different. Also, they might not have won 15 games with Maddox that year, but they would have easily won 12-13. Heck we won 13 games one season with Kordell at QB. That was a great team. Ben just complemented it very well. Ben went on to be a great player, but he was a clutch game manager for his first 4 years. That is a luxury that KP will not be afforded.

 

Teams win games, not players. Roethlisberger was very good as a rookie, much better than Pickett this season.

Pickett is more pro-ready than the other rookies, but that is a relative term. It is still an adjustment for any quarterback coming to the NFL. Seriously, I don't care where he played. All that does is give me a more well-rounded perspective because I've seen what he can do and you haven't.

I'm not making excuses. I'm offering a realistic, measured analysis that shows an understanding of how quarterbacks often develop in the NFL. I was hoping he would come along more quickly, but I understand that quarterbacks can take a year or two to develop in the NFL. You are offering a shallow, simplistic, knee-jerk reaction that doesn't qualify as analysis because it doesn't involve any real thought.