The B-Gap: Rookies Kenny Pickett and George Pickens keeping Steelers’ offense above water

By Sam Robb O’Hagan

There was something so satisfying about George Pickens’ 14-yard game winning touchdown catch against the Las Vegas Raiders last Saturday night.

It was the aesthetic quality of it all — the gorgeous uniform matchup between the Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the NFL’s most historic rivalries, under the floodlights at a perfectly wintry Acrisure Stadium, each player’s frigid breath visible from the broadcast angle.

There was the backdrop of the loving memory of Franco Harris, beholder of the iconic NFL moment, who passed away just days before. Harris’ “immaculate reception” was made exactly 50 years ago to the day on a cold December Saturday in Pittsburgh against the Raiders. 

As Pickens caught that game-winning football in the yellow pay-dirt, you couldn’t not be immediately reminded of Harris and his own game-winning touchdown catch against the Raiders half a century before. 

It was perfect, vintage football from the most historic of the NFL’s franchises. Just the way the Steelers have always wanted it — an ‘immaculate’ anniversary, as the team had forecasted on Friday morning.

It’s been an otherwise lost season for the Steelers; despite their last-second win on Christmas Eve, they are just 7-8 and FiveThirtyEight gives them a 2% chance to make the playoffs. Even if they win their last two games to finish 9-8, their chances rise to only 11%, and from there it would take an almost incomprehensible string of favorable results elsewhere to get Pittsburgh into the AFC’s last wild card spot. For proof of concept: Two Miami Dolphins losses, two Tennessee Titans losses, a New York Jets loss in Seattle and a New England Patriots loss in Buffalo would be enough to push the Steelers in.

Within all reasonable projections, the Steelers are not going to be a playoff team — and nor should they be. The offense has scored just 17.6 points per game, the third-lowest in the league, and are among the 10 worst in both total yards and passing yards per game. They’ve produced 36 explosive plays through the air (completed passes for more than 20 yards), only three of which have gained more than 40 yards; both are bottom-five outputs.

A Steelers’ quarterback has eclipsed 300 passing yards in a single game only once — it was rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett in Week 6 — in a 38-3 loss to the Buffalo Bills. 

Pickett and failed former second overall pick Mitchell Trubisky have rotated in and out of the Steelers’ starting role under center all season. Trubisky started the first four games before being quickly benched for Pickett in the fourth of those starts against the Jets, and has returned twice over the remaining 11 games in relief of the rookie as he suffered two separate mid-game concussions.

It has been a season on offense ripe with the stereotypical dysfunction associated annually with the league’s worst units. The quarterbacks have rode the carousel all season long, a talented and disgruntled receiver has been traded, the star running back has been brutally unproductive, and serious questions have continued to be asked of the play caller.

It is with this added context that makes Pickens’ game-winner on Saturday that much more satisfying. It was an excellently executed play to cap off a heroically executed drive. The timing of it all is spot on — Pickett perfectly threads the seam between a slot corner and the rotating middle field safety — and the necessary intricacies are not to be forgotten — the savvy nature of Pickens’ route to find the window just big enough, the disguised eyes of Pickett to freeze the middle field safety just long enough.

Perfect it was, and not just the historical poetry but the on-field execution as well, an exciting display of offensive competence between the Steelers’ two highest-drafted rookies.

And it’s these moments, these flashes of impressive talent and sustainable execution from this young offensive core that are what truly matters. The production and the overall output has been unquestionably poor, yes, but these flashes of potential brilliance continue to shine through.

Pickens’ Christmas Eve winner is just the tip of the iceberg. The 52nd overall pick in this year’s draft has contributed plenty of those flashes himself — an unbelievable one-handed grab against the Browns and a ridiculous display of hand strength down the sideline against the Colts are perhaps the most impressive — despite his overall output (47 receptions, 700 yards, 3 touchdowns) not being particularly noteworthy. 

His moments are a clear glimpse into what can be an elite player. Pickens is already a dominant physical force on the outside — and as a blocker in the run game, it should not be forgotten — who can bully any opposing boundary corner at the catch point. The lone outlier in a pedestrian statistical season are his 14.9 yards per catch (ninth in the league), and it’s reflective of the way that he’s won all season. He’s been a premier deep threat for the Steelers, he’s a nightmare on “50/50 balls,” where his size and strength are near impossible to contain, and that’s if opposing corners can even stay in phase with him down the field. Per PlayerProfiler, Pickens is 15th in receiving yards per target, eighth in deep targets, and sixth in average target distance.

Throw in the body control and the hands on display in that remarkable catch against the Browns, the 4.40 speed, and an attitude that embodies the “got that dog in him” cliche better than just about any receiver in the league, and Pickens has all the tools needed to become a true first-choice ‘X’ receiver in any offense.

The first chapter of the book on Pickett, the 20th overall pick in April’s draft, hasn’t exactly foreshadowed an elite career. If Pickens’ production has been only OK, Pickett’s has been undeniably poor. He’s 29th in passing yards (2,041), he’s thrown almost twice as many interceptions (9) as touchdowns (5), and he ranks 24th in ESPN’s adjusted quarterback rating (46.8). There are a myriad of reasons for his meager numbers, many out of his control, the least of which being that he’s only started 10 games. 

And Pickett, for what is in his control, is keeping his head well above water. If the deterioration of Zach Wilson is a reminder of just how poorly young quarterbacks can transition into the professional game, Pickett has certainly proved that he can survive in the NFL. There have been ugly reps, of course, but they are mostly part of the inevitable trials and tribulations of any rookie quarterback. For a player who relied heavily on athleticism at the collegiate level, Pickett always needed to figure out how that physical ability translated to the pros — and it’s those ugly reps that show him where he fits on the food chain.

His third quarter interception on Saturday against Las Vegas is a perfect example; Pickett progresses through his first read at the near side before attempting to throw into a tight window out of the corner of his eye with a funky arm angle. It goes about as well as you would expect.

Pickett genuinely believes he can make this play — one that very few, if any, can make — because he’s so used to winning with physical talent and creativity in college.

The NFL is a different monster, a lesson that Pickett learns the hard way as Raiders’ linebacker Denzel Perryman is gifted an interception. But this rep is still a valuable piece to Pickett’s ongoing development because it teaches him what he can and cannot get away with. For a creative quarterback most comfortable out of structure, those lessons are critical.

And make no mistake, Pickett is developing. He is noticeably better now than he was in his first throws on an NFL field back in Week 2, and for every frightening rep there’s an impressive one, too. His game-winning snipe to Pickens is the most obvious example — a throw that requires confidence, arm strength, and perfect timing — but his work throughout that drive is just as promising.

Pickett starts the drive by willing the Steelers across midfield with two excellent out-of-pocket completions to tight end Pat Freiermuth, a reminder that the ability to improvise that made him a first round pick can still translate, though in limited capacity, to the NFL. His next three throws are decisive checkdowns to Freiermuth and running back Najee Harris, themselves a reminder, perhaps, that Pickett is beginning to come to grips with his limitations.

Seconds later, the strike to Pickens that will define a rocky yet fruitful rookie season. Game over.

If that play was the culmination of an otherwise mediocre season in Pittsburgh, the Steelers couldn’t have asked for much more.

It sealed the win against the hated Raiders in the shadow of the memory of the franchise icon at the center of this heated rivalry. In regards to the team’s past, it was immaculate.

In regards to the teams’ future, it was pretty immaculate too, a brilliantly orchestrated play between the two heaviest bearers of the tradition of Pittsburgh Steelers football that the great Franco Harris started all those years ago.

Pickens and Pickett haven’t been perfect, and there’s still a long way to go. But in what was always a transitional season, their game-winner last Saturday is evidence that they are right where the Steelers need them to be.