The Pittsburgh Steelers have a ton of uncertainty with their quarterback position, and that uncertainty might carry over into the 2024 NFL Season. In a recent appearance with the media, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin seems to have indicated the team’s QB situation for 2024:
Kenny Pickett will return as the QB1 in 2024, but the team will bring in some competition. Mason Rudolph looked the best of the Steelers’ passers this year, which is certainly saying something. Pickett was the team’s first-round pick back in 2022, and I truly wonder if the team would have drafted him if he did not go to Pitt for college.
It feels like the Steelers went for the feel-good story by drafting Pickett, as the second-year passer has been truly abysmal for the team. In 25 games for the team, he’s thrown 13 touchdowns against 13 interceptions and has earned a passer rating of 78.8. He’s completing just 62.6% of his passes and averages 179 passing yards per game.
He also turns 26 this year. I don’t think there is a single part of Pickett’s game that the Steelers can objectively look at and say that he can be a franchise passer, and it’s baffling that he is being brought back as the QB1. Third-string QB Mason Rudolph looked exponentially better for the Steelers this year, and the saying “If you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have any” applies here.
It’s hard to pick which of the three QBs for the Steelers is clearly the best between Pickett, Rudolph, and Mitchell Trubisky, who also played this year. I think Pickett and Rudolph would be decent backup options, but the Steelers are accepting mediocrity if they are giving Pickett a shot to be the QB1. Tomlin does note that they will bring in competition, which most likely means a free agent acquisition.
In my opinion, if the Steelers were serious about winning, they’d bring back Rudolph as a stopgap QB and look to the 2024 NFL Draft to potentially find their long-term answer. Hanging onto Pickett for the third year is only delaying the Steelers chances at making noise in the playoffs.
