Former Steelers Safety Ryan Clark Appalled With Pittsburgh Trying To Validate Kenny Pickett; Risking Legacy Of Excellence

The Pittsburgh Steelers have everyone in their feelings over their quarterback situation. Should the team stick with Kenny Pickett? Should they retain Mason Rudolph who got them to the playoffs at the end of 2023? Or should they acquire another veteran such as Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill, or Justin Fields? Almost from the beginning, former Steelers safety Ryan Clark has been adamant that the path forward in 2024 should not include Pickett. 

Clark has been quite vocal that he doesn't think Pickett has what it takes to win in the highly competitive AFC North, or in the NFL as a whole. But now Clark, who is an analyst for ESPN, has added on the show Get Up, that he thinks the Steelers will engineer a quarterback situation that helps the team justify them standing by their 2022 first-round pick. 

"What they are going to do is they are going to go out and try to get a veteran that can push Kenny Pickett, a veteran that they can have an unbiased competition with. If Kenny Pickett wins that, they can walk into the season and say, 'Ok, we went out and tried to improve at the position and Kenny Pickett was a better choice to lead the team this year. So now we have the confidence in the guy we drafted in the first round with the 20th pick,'" said Clark.

The decision on one piece of potential competition might get made sooner rather than later as the Denver Broncos announced they are releasing Wilson and are allowing him to go ahead and speak with other teams. The Chicago Bears are expected to move Fields and draft a quarterback with their first overall pick, but when is unclear. Tannehill, who was most recently with the Tennessee Titans, is a free agent. 

It is impossible to tell if they are targeting any of these veterans and how much they are actually planning to stick with Pickett. Everyone in the organization, including Head Coach Mike Tomlin, General Manager Omar Khan, and President Art Rooney II, has all said that while Pickett needs to continue to develop, they have faith in him. Clark believes that kind of blind loyalty puts everything the franchise has built-in danger.  

"And if they do all that, it's going to be on brand for the Pittsburgh Steelers and it's going to be dead wrong in this situation because you're going to strap your team to a quarterback that can't lead you to the promised land. The reason that the Terrible Towel means something and the reason that the six Lombardis [Trophies] means something is because that organization is built on excellence. Kenny Pickett is not going to be your leader to the promised land of excellence and if he's not, I do believe it's time to go do something to make it different at that position."

When Khan spoke to the press at the NFL Combine recently, he said that it is part of his job to explore every option and to leave no stone unturned. He said that there would be "stiff competition" for the starting job and Pickett. What isn't clear is how he defines "stiff competition." The Steelers will have to bring in at least one quarterback since they released Mitch Trubisky recently. 

Another factor in the decision is the future of Rudolph. The team has expressed they would like to keep him, but Khan also acknowledged that it is only fair that he be allowed to explore free agency. Rudolph saved the Steelers' season in 2023 and that boosted his stock this offseason.

The Steelers' Problem With Kenny Pickett

When Pickett was drafted in 2022, the plan was for him to be the face of the franchise after the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger. Coming out of the University of Pittsburgh, Pickett was slightly older than other rookie quarterbacks and that meant he had played 52 college games. While Pickett might have been one of the best quarterbacks in that class, the class wasn't a good one. That led to teams reaching for players that normally would have fallen further down the board. Many analysts immediately thought that was what Pittsburgh did with Pickett. 

The flip side of that argument is that the team knew Pickett well. Pitt and the Steelers share a facility, which means Tomlin sees those players in their natural environment and gets more of an inside look at them. That thought did help quell some fears regarding Pickett's potential. 

While the initial plan was to have Pickett develop behind Trubisky, that fell apart quickly when the veteran quarterback proved to not be any better in Pittsburgh than he was in Chicago. Pickett was quickly thrust into the starting role and while he has a record with the Steelers of 14-10 as a starter, he has had a lot of help from his defense and his teammates. In the 25 games he's played, he has completed 446 of 713 attempted passes for 4,474 yards with 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. 

Of course, new Offensive Coordinator Arthur Smith feels that he can get Pickett up to speed, but what else could he say? However, it is true that Pickett only played one game (from start to finish), which he won, without Matt Canada running the offense. The team finally fired Canada and Pickett got hurt almost immediately after. It is possible that Canada stunted Pickett's development, after all, Pickett does display troubling on-field behaviors that we did not see when he was at Pitt, like the way he almost immediately begins to panic and scramble, or how much trouble he has reading the field. 

When Pickett was drafted, the training camp competition felt more like the team was checking a box than actually trying to determine who was best. They had a plan they wanted to execute and that's what they did. Let's hope that Clark is wrong about this and that whoever the Steelers have at quarterback at camp gets a shot at competing. Everyone does better when there is competition. 

What do you think about Clark's comments? Click to comment below. 

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