I know what many of you are thinking. “Here comes Jarrett and his eternally sick thought.”And look, I don’t like being submissive.
But I’m a realist. And the reality is that the Steelers’ ceiling is incredibly low unless they get serious about fixing the quarterback.
Trading L’Jarius Snead would give the Steelers possibly the best cornerback duo in football, as far as that goes will go them?
If this were 2006, I’d be a lot more confident in the idea of building an inferior defense and hoping that an average to bad quarterback can carry them deep into January.
Unfortunately, it’s not 2006, when Rex Grossman’s team went 13-3 and went to the Super Bowl.
It’s a completely different league, and if you don’t have the right guy under center, your ceiling is much lower than a team with a great quarterback.
Just look at the AFC quarterbacks: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow. , Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence.
You have to beat three of those guys to get to the Super Bowl, and you’re certainly not going to do that with Kenny Pickett.
Each statistic that emerges about Pickett paints a darker picture than the last.
Of the 35 eligible quarterbacks who played in the 2022 postseason, Pickett was 33rd in yards per attempt, 34th in touchdowns and 34th in passer rating.
And for anyone trying the whole “He has a winning record and multiple quarterbacks” argument:
Tim Tebow has career wins and led the NFL in fourth quarterbacks in 2011 – he was still really bad.
Pickett is too the only quarterback in NFL history with at least 500 pass attempts with less than a two percent completion rate. you can’t have your cake and eat it here.
Canada didn’t consistently miss open receivers or pirouettes in the pocket that led to sacks.
Canada was bad, but Pickett was just as bad – those things are not mutually exclusive.
That brings us to the options at outside linebacker, specifically Kirk Cousins and Justin Fields.
It seems that Cousins could be headed to Atlanta, but the Steelers should pursue the veteran quarterback more aggressively.
I don’t want to hear about the Achilles injury. Modern medicine will solve all the problems I have with it.
Tom Brady tore his ACL and came back like nothing happened. Adrian Peterson tore his ACL and MCL and won the MVP afterward.
The cousins are perfectly healthy. And if he ends up with the Falcons, they could win 11 games and comfortably capture the NFC South.
As for Fields, the physical tools are there and the fit in Arthur Smith’s offense is obvious.
An outside zone running scheme with Fields’ ability to run the play and use receivers in the middle of the field, the potential is there.
The biggest mistake fans can make is looking at a quarterback’s win-loss record. It’s so lazy. It is a team sport.
Many good quarterbacks have worse records than these quarterbacks. Matthew Stafford holds the record for career losses.
As soon as he got out of Detroit, he led the Rams to the Super Bowl.
He is one of the best quarterbacks in football who has been stuck in a bad situation for a long time.
Don’t confuse a bad quarterback with a bad record – they are not the same thing.
That’s not to say Fields isn’t without his flaws, but he’s far better than any Steelers quarterback over the past two seasons.
If the third round is enough to get Fields, the Steelers should do it without a second thought.Is there a risk in trading Fields?
Of course However, there is a risk that Pickett or Mason Rudolph could start again.
And I’d rather see the Steelers take a much bigger risk than hope that Pickett will be great, which we’ve seen happen without evidence.
So yeah, flashy moves like a potential trade or trade for Sneed. With the Bears going for Jaylon Johnson or even taking a big name receiver in the draft would be fun.
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that it doesn’t matter if Pickett is in center.
You’re not going to win anything meaningful with a bad quarterback. Sure, you can beat Will Levis and Jimmy Garoppolo.
Good luck doing that against the Chiefs. Or bills. Or Texans.
The “limit teams to less than 21 points and get one score in the fourth quarter” game plan works against mediocre teams in October – it leaves you behind by 40 points in January.
But like most things with the Steelers, they’re too stubborn to get out of their own way and waste another season thinking they can fix something that’s too broken to put back together.
