Steelers training camp buzz: Najee Harris called out, Kenny Pickett’s leap, no Kwon Alexander handouts

Steelers News: Kenny Pickett showing why he’ll make year 2 leap

The lion’s share of the burden for the Pittsburgh Steelers getting back to the playoffs in the 2023 season will fall on the shoulders of second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett.

After taking over as the starter relatively early in his rookie campaign, Pickett flashed the reasons why the organization made him the only quarterback selected in the first round of the 2022 draft, but there were also some shortcomings. One of the primary criticisms of the quarterback was orchestrating a checkdown-heavy and, for lack of a better term, dink-and-dunk type of passing offense.

But apparently, that was by design and, more importantly, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is ready to take the training wheels off and let Pickett be more aggressive, which should lead to the quarterback making a leap in year two. Here’s what Tomlin said about the change in offensive approach from 2022 to 2023 when speaking to the media, per NFL.com:

"“As you search for splash plays, you open yourself to more negativity,” Tomlin said. “We had a rookie quarterback a year ago — you’ve got to be mindful of getting him behind the chains, and the collective absorbing of too much negativity when they’re young. He’s a little bit older now, we’re a little bit older now, and it’s more just about more calculated risk-taking in an effort to get a desired outcome. But that’s just a fact — as you search for chunk plays, the potential for negativity is probably more prevalent, and we just weren’t interested in a whole bunch of negativity a year ago.”"

In addition to the “calculated risk-taking” though, the Steelers are also better positioned to ask Pickett to be more aggressive down the field. Not only does the addition of Allen Robinson make the receiving corps more dynamic, but the offensive line has been substantially improved, thus allowing Pickett to have more time upright to take deep shots and look for explosive plays.

Obviously, the talk of being more aggressive and Pickett making a jump in his level of play is great, but means nothing until we see it in a real game. With the information we have in training camp, though, the signs are there that QB1 is going to be in for a big year two.