TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY...Is Kenny Pickett really the answer?

Haven’t we seen enough?

Hear ye, hear ye, all of you who have entered the court of public opinion may now be seated. The Honorable Judge Aubrey Bruce residing…oops, I meant presiding. Sorry about that…in my court, there is no good or bad because what is, is.

I vividly remember when Steelers QB Kenny Pickett was drafted in the first round of the 2022 NFL draft, Pickett cried tears of joy and the Steelers breathed a huge sigh of relief. They needed an heir apparent to replace an aging and ineffective quarterback. However, what the Steelers received was an unsure and inexperienced QB whose claim to fame is his so-called ability to pull off last-minute, fourth-quarter heroics. The Steelers wouldn’t have to be concerned about fourth-quarter comebacks if they could muster a plethora of first downs and just a few more points in the first three quarters of games.
Currently, Pickett is the 26th-ranked quarterback in the NFL with a QBR of 81.6. Houston Texans rookie QB C.J. Stroud is ranked seventh in the league with a QBR of 102.9. Remember, Stroud is a rookie!

Recently, the hemming and hawing about the Steelers’ young star wide receiver George Pickens’ dissatisfaction about not being targeted enough has drawn the ire of a few of the “YMG” or Yinzer Media Group, which has called out the young wide receiver.

How dare George Pickens want more catches. Kenny Pickett and Steelers Offensive Coordinator, Matt Canada, oversee the Steelers offense. How dare Pickens add his two cents. He had better get in the huddle and accept whatever crumbs they throw at him, shut up his mouth, and get paid or he will end up in the graveyard of the so-called “selfish” Steelers. I can picture the inscription on his career tombstone now: “Here lies the career of a promising young player, whose playing days were cut short by selfish and self-serving control freaks, simply because he desired to have a productive career.”

I currently walk past the career tombstones of a few past Steelers players. Men with names like LeVeon Bell, Antonio Brown, Mike Wallace, Santonio Holmes, Plaxico Burress, Martavis Bryant, and a few others who only wanted to contribute competitively and be compensated economically. However, their careers were crucified because the pathogen of narcissism untimely infected a few people around them.

Now hear this. Even one of the Steelers’ discarded QBs, Minnesota Vikings and ex-Arizona Cardinals backup QB Josh Dobbs, is ranked 20th, six spots higher than Kenny Pickett. Before Dobbs was traded from Arizona to Minnesota, he led the Cardinals to an upset win over the Dallas Cowboys. This past weekend, Nov. 5, Dobbs threw a six-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Powell with less than 30 seconds remaining to lead the Vikings to a 31-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons. Despite joining the team less than two weeks ago when he was traded to the Vikings from the Cardinals, Dobbs found a way to lead the Vikings to victory. Meanwhile, Kenny Pickett has had the advantage of being with the Steelers system with the same offensive coordinator for more than 18 months, and it seems as if Pickett is giving the term “slow learner” a new definition.

If this keeps up, sooner than later, Kenny Pickett, like his predecessor, Ben Roethlisberger, will be throwing picks into the unsuspecting arms of opposing defensive linemen and blaming the results of his mistakes on receivers running the wrong routes. At this point, Kenny Pickett seems as if he might be a second or even a third-string quarterback. Pickett’s slow starts mean future disaster for the Pittsburgh Steelers Football Club.

Depending on Kenny Pickett may be relevant to calling 911 to report that your house is on fire and the fireman responding to the call after 70 percent of the house has been destroyed. There is no room for slow starts. Albert Einstein once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”