The Pittsburgh Steelers are still searching for their long-term answer at quarterback, riding a seemingly never-ending carousel of stopgaps and failed draft picks that has been spinning since the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger.
One of the first quarterbacks who was supposed to fill that void was 2022 first-round pick Kenny Pickett, who also happened to be the last first-round pick that former general manager Kevin Colbert made before retiring that year.
Even though Pickett never successfully developed into a long-term answer in Pittsburgh, and was then traded after just two years by the new GM (Omar Khan), Colbert is sticking by his decision and still defending the pick of Pickett.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert defends Kenny Pickett draft pick
During an appearance on Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan (h/t SI.com) this week, Colbert said the Steelers selected Pickett to be a winning quarterback, and he pointed to his 14-10 record as a starter as evidence that he was living up to expectations and trending in the right direction.
He added:
“Kenny’s a great young man. He’s a great competitor… And I still think at a young age, I still think Kenny can continue to build on what he did with us in those first two seasons.”
It’s an overly optimistic view, and one that you might expect from the general manager who actually made the selection. Nobody likes to admit when they got a big decision like that wrong.
It is also true that the Steelers did, in fact, have a winning record with Pickett as their starter. But Pickett was more of a caretaker for the offense than any sort of a difference-maker, consistently being asked to not make any major mistakes instead of trying to make big plays. Most of the Steelers’ wins with Pickett were ugly, low-scoring games where the defense dominated and the team won the turnover battle with a low-risk, low-scoring offense that never tried to do too much.
It won some regular-season games.
It was never a recipe for Super Bowl contention or sustained long-term success.
Colbert had a Hall of Fame-worthy career running the Steelers for more than two decades, building three teams that went to the Super Bowl and two that won it. But some of his later draft classes produced more misses than hits, and the Pickett one was at the top of that list. It was a perfect storm of circumstances that saw the Steelers needing a quarterback, a weak quarterback class and maybe a little bit of desperation all meeting at one point.
Since Pickett, the Steelers have also gone through veterans Russell Wilson and now Aaron Rodgers, while also taking developmental mid-round draft picks like Will Howard and Drew Allar.
It is up to new head coach Mike McCarthy to develop one of them. Or at least try to develop one of them.