Tim Benz: Questions remain around Kenny Pickett — and many other quarterbacks

At this time a year ago, pretty much any Pittsburgh Steelers conversation was focused on the quarterback position.

Would Aaron Rodgers really retire or leave Green Bay? What’s happening with Russell Wilson and Derek Carr? Do the Steelers have any faith in Mason Rudolph? How serious is the team about drafting Pitt’s Kenny Pickett?

Is Pickett really a franchise quarterback, or was he just good at Pitt? After what we saw at the Senior Bowl, will Malik Willis be better than Pickett? What about Matt Corral, Desmond Ridder or Sam Howell?

If they go the cheap route in free agency, does Mitch Trubisky make sense? Could he make it as a Steeler for a few years?

Twelve months ago, all those things were being discussed on a daily basis in Pittsburgh.

A year later, many of them still are.

Rodgers decided to stay with the Packers; now he is using a four-day darkness seclusion retreat to mull over the same decisions again. Carr stayed in Las Vegas; now he’s a free agent. Wilson went to Denver on a five-year contract extension; now there’s debate if he’s going to be worth keeping after Year 2.

In terms of Trubisky, yes, the Steelers did sign him as their starter in March 2022. Now some are wondering if they may trade him this offseason, or if he’s going to stick around for the second year of his contract as a backup.

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As for Willis (61 attempts with the Tennessee Titans), Corral (0), Ridder (115 with the Atlanta Falcons) and Howell (19 with the Washington Commanders), they combined to throw 195 passes. None were selected in the first round. Corral spent his first year with the Carolina Panthers on injured reserve. The other three are presumably in the mix to contend as starters for their teams next season.

That brings us to Pickett. I’d argue the conversation is still very much the same about him.

It should be after just a partial year as the starter in Black and Gold — a season that was interrupted by two trips into the concussion protocol.

Pickett led an offense that was painfully simplistic so as not to expose him to excess risk as a rookie. Unfortunately, though, by extension, that restricted offense also failed to give him many chances to hit big plays down the field or put up many points in quick-strike fashion.

My opinions on Pickett are still what they were a year ago. I put him in the same Matt Hasselbeck-esque box that I put him in when he was going through the draft process. Eventually, he’ll be good enough to make a few Pro Bowls and the playoffs on a regular basis. Maybe even good enough to get you to a Super Bowl.

But to win one? Or two, like Ben Roethlisberger? The jury was out in 2022, and it still is in 2023.

I still think Pickett was worthy of being taken in the second half of the first round, as he was by the Steelers at pick 20.

I still think he can be very good. But I still need to be shown that he can be great.

I still think his floor is high, while I continue to have some reservations about how high his ceiling can be.

Those hunches were all reinforced by seeing him go 6-1 in games he started (and finished) after the bye, while throwing just one interception. But also seeing just five touchdowns in that time and seven overall on the season.

As well as a passer rating that placed him 33rd in the NFL over the course of 2022.

The strengths that Pickett showed us were largely what we saw at Pitt. Command of the pocket. Poise. Ability to throw on the move. Improved accuracy as the season went along. A propensity to make a big throw during late-season, game-ending drives.

Some of the negatives were also largely on-script from what the concerns were about Pickett coming out of Pitt. Is the arm strength — and overall talent — good enough to cut it against the best of the league? Pickett only beat one playoff team (the Baltimore Ravens on Jan. 1) in a game that he successfully started and finished.

Can the Steelers run an offense that is wide open and high-end NFL caliber with Pickett at the helm? Given some of the restrictions that still seemed to be in place with him as a rookie, that remains unclear.

That’s understandable. In fact, any other extreme view makes me feel like the person expressing it is just trying to proclaim a preconceived notion about Pickett to be fact long before all the evidence has presented itself.

We seem to have the “Kenny walks on water” camp. They look at 6-1 after the bye and already considering him as a franchise quarterback because they loved him coming out of Pitt. Then you have the “Kenny is an overrated bust” camp because that’s what they thought of him coming out of Pitt, and they are seizing on the negatives of the offense overall.

Based on what we saw in 2022, I can’t see how anyone could make such a presumption in one direction or the other.

Unless, maybe, you’ve been thinking about it for four straight days in darkness.

Even then, I may still emerge with the same questions. After all, how much did a year’s worth of daylight really shine on us anyway?