Steelers' Ramon Foster Compares Kenny Pickett To This Elite Level "Game Manager"

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Kenny Pickett is headed into his second season in the NFL after being drafted in the first round of 2022. The topic of how Pickett will perform in 2023 is one that has become hotly contested. 

This kind of criticism isn’t new for Pickett. He has been on the receiving end of doubt since his days playing at the University of Pittsburgh. Those rumblings were only compounded by him being one of only two round-one-worthy quarterbacks in his draft class. 

The lack of comparable quarterbacks in 2022 has left him open to constant comparisons elsewhere. There are also more questions poised regarding how he stacks up against the 2023 draft class as well as other young quarterbacks in the league. 

One of the comments frequently made about Pickett is that he is more of a “game manager” than an “elite” quarterback in the league. The term is used to describe a quarterback that is just considered “good” rather than “great.” 

Game managers do not throw a lot of interceptions; their stats are reliable and decent, but are nothing to write home about. If you surround them with a solid offense, he can manage that group and win some games. Like most terms created by the media to sensationalize players, it is pretty meaningless. 

Now one former Steeler is speaking up and saying that the term shouldn’t be used as an insult at all. 

Is The Steelers Kenny Pickett Just A Game Manager? 

Former Steelers offensive guard, Ramon Foster, spoke about this on a recent episode of his podcast, The Ramon Foster Show. Foster, who co-hosts the show on DK Pittsburgh Sports with reporter Dejan Kovacevic, said that “game manager” isn’t an insult. 

On the show, the two hosts take questions and comments from fans and the topic of how Pickett is perceived came up. The fan said he believes that at some point we will hear his name compared favorably alongside other elite quarterbacks like Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts. 

Foster and Kovacevic both agree that while that isn’t outside of the realm of possibility, we might be looking at this the wrong way. Each team has its own unique personality and system, so while you can compare stats, it isn’t always an accurate side-by-side. 

Each team has its own offensive style, according to Foster. This isn’t a bad thing or a good thing, just a different thing, and the offenses in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh are different. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses they have to account for. 

Foster pointed out that Hurts did an outstanding job in 2022, but he was also working with what he had and made good things happen. However, because Hurts took them to a Super Bowl, no one uses the dreaded “game manager” term to describe him, despite him being exactly that. 

“They are not gonna say somewhat of a game manager with those numbers. It just has such a negative connotation to it. It really shouldn’t,” Foster said. 

Kovacevic agrees with Foster and says that what separates good quarterbacks from bad ones in the NFL is their ability to read the field and adjust or improvise. 

“When you hear ‘improvise’ people think it’s got to be Ben (Roethlisberger) street-ball. No, to improvise can sometimes mean you just are good at your second check, you’re good at your third check, you’re good at seeing something that wasn’t supposed to be your first check, but you pick up on it right away by reading the safety.” 

Foster feels that the NFL has been full of elite quarterbacks who have also been excellent game managers and that the two are not mutually exclusive. 

“It comes down to moments, getting out of a sack, rolling out, and hitting somebody down the field, that to me is what a gunslinger is. If you think about Peyton Manning that’s all he did, he played in a system.” 

Kovacevic calls Manning, “the ultimate game manager” and says that the reason he was so successful is that management extended beyond just his offensive line. 

“He was the system, the whole Omaha thing, standing out there reading the line, making sure that the crowd in Indianapolis was trained like a service dog to be quiet for him. It was quiet as a mouse in Indianapolis and the offense was out there with Peyton Manning.” 

Both agree that fans are making the mistake of looking at the Steelers' offense as being already solidified as a “formed thing” when it is not. Pickett just finished his first season and most other offensive players are very young as well. While we may not like it as fans maybe, we need to be a little bit patient and see what develops.

What do you think? Is Pickett just a game manager? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you feel that he is being judged unfairly this early in his career? What do you think we will see from him in 2023? Click to comment below. 

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