Steelers legend Terry Bradshaw criticizes team's handling of Kenny Pickett
Kenny Pickett’s time as the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t last long.
The 2022 first-round pick spent two seasons with the Steelers. He was 14-10 as a starter and had 4,474 passing yards, 13 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions in 25 total games.
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Pro Football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw criticized the Steelers on Monday for not doing enough to put a team around Pickett as the organization is set to transition to a new starting quarterback for the 2025 season in Aaron Rodgers.
"Steelers getting rid of Kenny Pickett," he said last week in a Q&A on the "To The Point Home Services Podcast." "A first-rounder, got rid of him after two years. And they're still looking for a quarterback. They didn't even do anything to build around him."
Bradshaw added that he always believed first-round quarterbacks were going to be successful as long as the right roster is built around them. He cited Baker Mayfield’s success with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Sam Darnold’s success with the Minnesota Vikings before he joined the Seattle Seahawks.
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Pittsburgh missed the playoffs in 2022 and made it in 2023. George Pickens broke out as a 1,000-yard receiver while Najee Harris rushed for 1,035 yards. But Pickett and the Steelers split before the 2024 season.
Pickett became the backup for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and was on the roster when the team won the Super Bowl. He joined the Cleveland Browns this offseason and will vie for the starting quarterback job there.
Bradshaw torched the Steelers in May before the team signed Rodgers. He called the possibility a "joke."
"I liked Kenny Pickett. I liked him at Pitt. I know him, I know what he’s like. And when they got him to Pittsburgh, here’s what they didn’t do," Bradshaw said on an Arkansas radio show. "They didn’t protect him... they didn’t get him an offensive line. They wanted to run the football, but they didn’t have an offensive line that could protect, and they didn’t have weapons. He had no wide receivers to speak of.
"And then they throw a kid in there for two years, and you’ve got an offense that doesn’t fit and doesn’t work, and they can’t run because their offensive line’s not even good enough for a run-blocking team. And therefore they say Pickett was a failure. He wasn’t a failure, the Steelers were a failure."
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