‘I Love It’: Kenny Pickett Fires Back at Steelers Offense Concerns

Kenny Pickett believes the concerns over the Steelers offense are greatly exaggerated. The Steelers quarterback is entering his second season with Matt Canada at the helm, but there have been questions from analysts that question what Canada is doing with the team’s offense.

One such report got released to the point where it was decided that the offense would not open up much for Pickett. Joining Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast, Pickett and Heyward joked about the absurdity of the reports and fired back on some questions about the offense.

“Where’d you hear that? I’m excited where the offense went this spring, I think it’ll be a good,” Pickett said.

Heyward and Pickett talked about the intricacies of the Steelers offense, including the fact that they play in all different formations that allows Pickett to get on the move and adapt his game to multiple settings. The team runs pistol, under center, and shotgun formations and use various alignments within each.

“I think it’s great to be able to work under both,” Pickett said. “You know, love working under center and in the gun, then adding play action to it. You can get me on the move from both, and the versatility of it from what I can do and what the team can do, I think it’s a good system for us.”

Meanwhile, the all-knowing question of play action rises up for the Steelers offense more than enough times. The team has been among the lowest in rates on that front for the better part of a decade, but Pickett is not averse to it. In fact, he loves what play action brings to the table in the Steelers offense.

“I love it, especially with Najee,” Pickett said. “There’s a give and take to it. If you have a really good running game, you can trust the defense is gonna take to it. So, if the run game is not too good and those guys don’t step up, that’s where it’s a problem. But coming off the spring and what we did, I’m excited to get to camp.”

The offense needs more than just Canada’s cooperation to work. It comes down to players execution of the broader scheme, which was not good last year either. As for more freedom in the offense, with another year of experience for most of these guys, I would imagine Pickett and the weapons will have some more leeway to do things as they see fit.