Pittsburgh Steelers Announce New 2023 Captains Including Kenny Pickett

The Pittsburgh Steelers are all but ready for the 2023 season. With preseason over and the 53-man roster locked in, all that is left for them to do is set their captains, and that is just what they have done. On their official Twitter / X account, they have announced the players that will be leading the team throughout the season. The captains are not too surprising, and they should be more than capable of leading the Steelers. 

Steelers 2023 Captains

The offensive captain is obvious, being starting quarterback, Kenny Pickett. In 2022, despite being signed in the offseason, Mitch Trubisky was the offensive captain for the team (even after he was benched in Week 4 for Pickett). Now that Pickett is expected to start the whole season, he gets the captain role.

Even though it's only Pickett's second season, he's still expected to be a leader on and off the field. He has all the confidence in the world and has proved it throughout training camp and preseason, but he is also very humble in interviews. All throughout the team's time in Latrobe, while everyone was praising him, he was deflecting and talking about the great things that his teammates and coaches were doing. It's safe to say that he has the mentality to be a leader for this team. 

In another obvious move, the vocal leader of the defense for many years now gets the call of captain once again. For the eighth time in his career, Cameron Heyward will be the defensive captain for the Steelers. Nearly every clip of the Steelers defense getting hyped involves Heyward giving a motivating speech. As long as Heyward is on the Steelers roster, he should remain a captain of this team. 

Like with Pickett, Heyward is very confident on the field and very humble when there's a microphone in his face. He is exactly what you expect out of a leader, and he will continue to prove why he almost always represents the team as a defensive captain.

Heyward will not be the only pass rushing captain. The other defensive captain will go to the best defensive player in football. TJ Watt is an on-field leader and the model for what you want in a defensive player. He's quick, strong, dominating, smart, and he has a never-ending motor on him. He didn't just accidentally tie Michael Strahan's sack record in 2021 with much less playing time due to injury. 

With all that in mind, it is a little surprising that he's a captain, considering the fact that he is somewhat quiet. He's a leader by example, but he's not a very vocal player on the field. He is at least humble whenever he does speak, but one would get more hyped up and motivated by his actions as opposed to hearing what he has to say. Either way, as long as he can get people to rally by causing chaos on the field, that still works for a captain. 

With lots of turnover on the special teams side (including linebacker Marcus Allen and running back Benny Snell to free agency), it makes sense that Miles Killebrew earns the captaincy for this unit. Killebrew earns the captaincy with being the special teams ace and disrupting the punter multiple times per year, which is hard for any player to do even once in their career.