Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Patrick Peterson said that if he had to hand the keys to one player to the be the starting quarterback for his team in 2024, it would be Kenny Pickett.
In an episode of his All Things Covered Podcast with former Steelers cornerback Bryant McFadden, Peterson said that he believes Pickett deserves a chance to show what he can do with new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith now running the offense.
“There is a new offensive coordinator, a new regime coming in, I get all that. It needs to be a competition,” Peterson said. “But if I had to hand the keys over to a guy, it would be Kenny Pickett. Not only did we go out and draft this guy, we got him as our franchise quarterback. It didn’t end up panning out the way we thought it would. We fired our OC, We’re gonna give everybody a fresh start, and we drafted him to be our guy. So now we’ve got a new offensive coordinator in here, a new offensive mind, a new way of thinking on how to get the ball down field, how to get the ball in important’s people’s hands.
“Kenny, getting a fresh start, should have the opportunity to be the day one. If I had to pick which one I wanted to go with, it would be, right now, Kenny Pickett.”
Peterson reiterated that he does believe in competition at the position, something that he has said previously.
“It should be a quarterback competition,” he said. “Maybe that does light a little fire under his behind. I don’t know.”
Clearly, with his comments that “it didn’t end up panning out,” Peterson is acknowledging that Pickett wasn’t good enough in 2023, but he sees enough in the young passer — or perhaps was so disgusted by what he saw from offensive coordinator Matt Canada — that he is willing to give him another shot with Arthur Smith calling the plays.
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