Steelers' Kenny Pickett Given Controversial Comparison To Cringeworthy Tim Tebow

The Pittsburgh Steelers had one of the more difficult decisions to make in their franchise history: who would be the next Steelers quarterback after Ben Roethlisberger? Following Roethlisberger's retirement after the 2021 season, Pittsburgh drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Since Pickett's selection, it has been a challenging road for the young quarterback. In 2023, his second season, the struggles haven't smoothed out much, and now there is talk about comparing Pickett to another talented, but unsuccessful player, Tim Tebow.

Steelers' Kenny Pickett Glorified For Comebacks

On 93.7 The Fan on Tuesday, the topic of Pickett came up, and co-host Joe Starkey steered the conversation to a particular comparison that had been made regarding the young Pittsburgh quarterback.

Steelers fans know the name Tebow all too well, and not in any positive sense. During his time in the NFL, Tebow had two sides to his reputation. First, he was a violent competitor who would do anything to win, and he raised the level of passion on his team. Second, though, was that he simply was not a good quarterback. His throwing motion was slow, he couldn't break down defenses, and the times he experienced the most success was during his flurry of 4th-quarter comebacks. Overall, it's not who you want your young franchise quarterback to be compared to.

Starkey was pondering on whether Doug Flutie was a better choice to compare Pickett to, but he ended up going in a different direction.

"There's a better comparison [than Flutie] for this, this early in a career, and it ain't a good one... it's Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow did nothing in his NFL career."

That's a really harsh way to start out a comparison, and it didn't get much better from that point onward. Steelers fans who have watched Pickett throughout his young career know that offensive production has been hard to come by until those last few minutes when some kind of magic takes over. As exciting as those moments have been, it is just another link between him and Tebow.

"He [Tebow] actually set an NFL record... six game-winning drives, comeback wins, in his first 11 starts. That was an NFL record! This dude would do nothing for all of a game and then win it late; it was like the Tebow Magic."

Pickett already has five comeback wins in his first 17 starts, something that Starkey admits must be up there with Tebow's record, but still isn't the kind of positive that it emotionally feels like.

Steelers Not Set Up For Success By Late-Game Heroics

There is no doubt about Pickett's ability to turn it on late in games, especially when it seems like there is no logical reason for the offense to come to life suddenly. As captivating as those moments are, they are meant to be the exception rather than the rule. Teams who make their living off close games and last-minute victories will always be haunted by the slim margin of error they are playing with. Starkey recognizes the emotional component that makes those comebacks so awesome as they are happening, but the fact that they are necessary to claim victory is worrying.

"There's a couple of problems here... the first problem is, in order to achieve a comeback, you gotta be losing. That's problem one. Problem two is that Tebow stunk the whole rest of the time, and yet I would argue that Tebow - at this point in his career - was a better quarterback than Kenny Pickett."

Let's hit the brakes here before we fly right off the cliff. While Starkey certainly has a point when looking at the similarities in late-game comebacks, there is no way that anyone who considers themselves an expert in the NFL could say that Pickett is a worse quarterback than Tebow. It's not wrong to say that their tendency to save success for the end of games is something they both have in common, but Starkey's comment didn't clarify that. He simply said that 17 games into their careers, Tebow was the superior professional quarterback.

Starkey used Tebow's 2011 season as an example of how close Pickett is to the trajectory that Tebow's career took. Steelers fans know that as the season where Tebow, with a single playoff overtime pass, ended a campaign filled with hope and promise for Pittsburgh.

"He [Tebow] had 12 touchdowns and six picks... threw minimal touchdowns, just like Pickett. Had five game-winning drives that year, and he also ran for 660 yards and six touchdowns. So, I would make the argument that he was doing more then to help the Broncos than Pickett is right now."

Starkey has every right to his opinion, even if it does seem a bit off-center regarding this particular topic. The one major aspect that cannot be set aside when discussing Pickett and the last-minute magic is that Pickett is operating with Matt Canada calling the shots. Perhaps what we are seeing is a Canada-fueled strategy for most of the game, and then when everything is on the line, Pickett gets to call the plays. When seen through that lens, the results seem slightly different when you judge purely based on statistics or comebacks.

"Maybe the moral to the story is that game-winning comebacks... in a small sample size don't necessarily indicate long-range success."

Tebow didn't have a very long career as a professional quarterback, mainly because that Tebow Magic eventually fizzled, and there was nothing left to fall back on except for a horribly slow throwing motion. Pickett isn't Tebow. That is something that must be made perfectly clear. Are there similarities? Absolutely, but until we watch Pickett operating without Canada as a factor, I am not sure we can make a full evaluation of what we are seeing unfold on the field.

Would you want Tebow or Pickett leading a two-minute drive to win the game? Comment below.

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