Steelers Friday mailbag: More Kenny Pickett discourse

Welcome to the Steelers Friday mailbag where we answer your questions every week. Let’s open the envelopes.

Q: What is with your distain for Kenny Pickett?- SethD66

I’ll give a long-winded answer, so forgive me. I don’t hate Pickett the person. He is tough as hell, and seems to have a good head on his shoulders. I have never spoken to him, but he seems like a good dude. I hate the narrative around him. Everyone looks at game-winning drives against bad teams and praises him as Jesus of Nazareth. You know what would be great? If the Steelers could win convincingly every once in a while. Every great team in the NFL has at least one win where they just stomped another team- the Steelers haven’t had one of those kinds of wins in a long time. Say what you want about Canada, but he called a good game against the Titans. He wasn’t the one overthrowing receivers all night. My problem is that this offense has such a low ceiling with Pickett under center, and this is the only way they can win with him. All of their wins have been by one score, and all of their losses have been by two or more scores. They have lost six games by two or more scores since 2022, and won only two such games. So sure, your gameplan can be to limit teams to 19 points when you play the Rams, the Titans, the Raiders, and the rest of the NFL middle class and lower class. But anyone who thinks they can do this against one of the elite AFC teams in the Wildcard round is crazy. This team’s ceiling is being last year’s Giants or the 2021 Patriots. So no, I don’t hate Pickett. I hate that parts of the fan base will gloss over his poor performances every week for one drive. The standard used to be higher for Steelers fans.

Q: Whose idea was it to have Canada on the sideline?- IronCladTheory

That’s a Tomlin call, and an overdue one. Canada called a solid game last night. He still had a select few play calls that were mind-numbing, but overall it was a fine game from him.

Q: Why is Pressley Harvin still on the roster?- jockeyjockey

Any chances of them bringing in a new punter ended in camp when they chose Harvin over Braden Mann. But I agree, Harvin is bad and hopefully a new leg will come in sooner than later.

Q: What is your opinion on Art as an owner? He doesn’t appear to really be great at anything outside of following historical traditions that are impacting the current on the field success of the Steelers

You hit the nail on the head. I saw one of those “Give me an unpopular Pittsburgh opinion” tweets, and someone made a great point- Art is arguably just as bad as Bob Nutting for the Pirates. The Steelers just happened to have a Hall of Fame quarterback that helped mask that. They don’t spend big money on splash signings, they are rarely aggressive to make big-name acquisitions. They are contend with being in the entertainment business rather than the winning business, at least that is what it’s felt like as of late.