I’m a big Clint Eastwood fan. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales,’ the Dirty Harry series and the spaghetti westerns a combined 1,000 times but it’s a line from one of his more decorated films that I’m recalling today. In the Academy Award winning ‘Unforgiven,’ Eastwood’s William Munny stands over Gene Hackman’s ‘Little Bill’ with a shotgun pointing at Little Bill’s face. Looking up, Little Bill says, “I don’t deserve this” to which Munny replies, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it” as he fires the gun. While many have interpreted the line any number of ways, I was thinking about it as I pondered the future for Pittsburgh Steelers’ Quarterback Kenny Pickett.
First of all, that was a work of fiction involving a brutal death while this is real life and not quite that serious. The question as it pertains to Pickett is no less interesting however. The 2022 first round draft pick of the Steelers has now played in 25 career games starting 24 of them. His win-loss record is 14-10 while his TD to INT ratio is 13-13. Those are not the type of numbers you want to see in a first round QB but… Matt Canada.
I said this last year at this exact same time. If the Steelers keep Canada as the OC then they risk setting Kenny Pickett back a year and that is exactly what happened. Despite our brief preseason foray into greatness, the regular season revealed exactly who the Steelers were under Pickett and Canada. So this takes me back to my original question, does Pickett deserve a chance under a new OC? Keep in mind that after the 2024 season the Steelers will need to decide if they will give Pickett his fifth-year option exactly how they must decide this with Najee Harris right now.
What Mason Rudolph did in his four starts to end the year was far better than anything Pickett had done thus far in his own career. Rudolph ran the offense more effectively, got the ball out on time and most importantly, he generated more points. At this point though we still don’t know if Rudolph will return. Even if he does, is he a better option than Pickett? After all, Rudolph did put up points against two of the worst defenses in the NFL (CIN, SEA) before coming back to Earth a bit against Baltimore and Buffalo.
It will be some time before we truly know what Mike Tomlin, Omar Khan and the Steelers think of Pickett and his future. If they sign a Kirk Cousins or Russell Wilson then either of those two would immediately be your starter. If it’s more of a Jacoby Brissett or Gardner Minshew then we’d have ourselves a competition. And then there’s the Draft. Should the Steelers take someone in the first or second round at the quarterback position then that too will tell us what they think of the former Pitt Panther.
What we must keep in mind is that the National Football League is a business. Winning games and putting butts in seats are the two most important parts of that business and there is very little that is “nice” about it. In other words, regardless of what we or Pickett thinks, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
