Yes, I know what a good portion of you are thinking. “Here comes Jarrett and his continually morbid thought process.”
And look, I don’t enjoy being a downer. But I’m a realist. And the reality is that the Steelers’ ceiling is incredibly low if they don’t make a serious move to upgrade at quarterback.
While trading for L’Jarius Sneed would undoubtedly give the Steelers the best cornerback duo in football, how far would that get them? If it was 2006, I’d be much more confident in the idea of building a juggernaut defense and hope that mid-to-poor quarterback play could take them deep into January. Unfortunately, though, it isn’t 2006 when a Rex Grossman-led team went 13-3 and made it to the Super Bowl. It’s a completely different league, and if you don’t have a real guy under center, your ceiling will be far lower than a team who does have a great quarterback.
Just look at the quarterbacks in the AFC alone: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence. You are going to have to beat any three of those guys in order to get to the Super Bowl, and you sure as hell aren’t doing that with Kenny Pickett. Every stat that comes out about Pickett paints a more grim picture than the last. Of 35 qualifying quarterbacks since the start of the 2022 season, Pickett ranked 33rd in yards per attempt, 34th in touchdown-interception ratio, and 34th in passer rating. And for anyone who is going to try the whole “He has a winning record and tons of fourth quarter comebacks” argument: Tim Tebow has a career winning record and led the NFL in fourth quarter comebacks in 2011- he was still very bad
Pickett is also the only quarterback in NFL history with at least 500 pass attempts to have a touchdown percentage lower than two percent- oof.
We can all agree that Matt Canada was a dreadful offensive coordinator, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too here. Canada didn’t constantly miss open receivers or do pirouettes in the pocket that led to sacks. Canada was bad, but Pickett was just as bad- these things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Which brings us to the outside options at quarterback, specifically Kirk Cousins and Justin Fields. It appears that Cousins may be on his way to Atlanta, but the Steelers should have been more aggressive in pursuit of the veteran quarterback. I don’t wanna hear about the achilles injury. Modern medicine all but takes care of any worries I have with that. Tom Brady tore his ACL and came back as if nothing happened. Adrian Peterson tore up his ACL and MCL and won an MVP after the fact. Cousins is going to be absolutely fine. And if he does end up with the Falcons, they are winning 11 games and comfortably winning the NFC South.
When it comes to Fields, the physical tools are there, and the fit with Arthur Smith’s offense is evident. The outside zone running scheme, combined with the utilization of Fields’ ability to run while using play action and taking advantage of receivers over the middle of the field- the potential is there.
The biggest mistake fans can make is looking at a win-loss record for a quarterback. That’s so lazy. It’s a team sport. Plenty of good quarterbacks have worse records than quarterbacks they are better than. Matthew Stafford has a losing record for his career. As soon as he got out of Detroit, he led the Rams to a Super Bowl. He is one of the best quarterbacks in football who was stuck in a bad situation for a long time. Don’t confuse bad quarterback play with a bad record- they are not the same thing. That’s not to say Fields is without his flaws, but he is far better than any quarterback the Steelers have suited up over the last two seasons. If all it takes to acquire Fields is a third-round pick, the Steelers should do that without thinking twice.
Is there some risk associated with trading for Fields? Sure. However, there is a risk starting Pickett or Mason Rudolph again, as well. And I’d rather see the Steelers take a risk with a far higher upside than hoping Pickett becomes great, which we’ve seen zero evidence of happening.
So yes, making flashy moves like a potential Sneed trade, or a trade with the Bears for Jaylon Johnson, or even moving up in the draft for a big-name receiver would all be fun. Unfortunately, the grim truth is that it all means nothing if Pickett is under center. You aren’t winning anything of note with a bad quarterback. Sure, you can eek out wins over Will Levis and Jimmy Garoppolo. Good luck doing that against the Chiefs. Or the Bills. Or the Texans. The gameplan of “limit teams to below 21 points and have one scoring drive in the fourth quarter” will work against mediocre teams in October- it’ll leave you with 40 points dropped on your head in January. But like most things with the Steelers, they’ll be too stubborn to get out of their own way and waste another season thinking they can fix something that is far too broken to be put together.
