Steelers Rumors: Surprise cut, Colin Cowherd hate, preseason star
By Kristen Wong
Steelers Rumors: Ouch! Colin Cowherd pinches fans dreaming about Kenny Pickett
Long known for his incendiary takes, Colin Cowherd decided to keep things real for Steelers fans optimistic about Kenny Pickett heading into 2023.
On his show "The Herd", Cowherd said there were 14 teams in the NFL that could feasibly win the Super Bowl in 2023. That in itself is not a ridiculous number -- a little high, maybe, but it goes to show the growing competitiveness of the league.
Sadly, Pittsburgh does not count as one of those Super Bowl-contending teams right now.
Co-host Jason McIntyre floated the idea of the Steelers making it all the way, and Cowherd immediately shut down that ballooning notion before it got inflated any further.
He believed (rightly so) that Pickett can't consistently compete in the quarterback gauntlet that is the AFC. To make it to the big stage, Pickett would have to go up against and beat the likes of Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Most second-year quarterbacks on young, rebuilding squads can only complete that feat in their dreams.
"He’s not going to Arrowhead and then Cincinnati and Buffalo and Baltimore."
- Colin Cowherd
Instead, Cowherd lumps Pickett in a separate category called "Could win a playoff game."
While non-spectacular quarterbacks have occasionally reached the Super Bowl (Joe Flacco, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jared Goff), their respective team strengths made up for their own weaknesses. Pittsburgh can boast a good amount of talent supporting Pickett on both sides of the ball, but is their roster a Super Bowl-caliber one? Not yet.
See if Pickett can make the playoffs first (a 9-8 record probably won't cut it). The rest will follow.