Kenny Pickett made his long-awaited NFL debut during the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 24-20 home loss to the New York Jets in Week 4.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin opted to bench Mitchell Trubisky after the sixth-year passer struggled to get in a groove during his time on the field in the first half. He guided the offense to a mere two scoring drives and also posted a 41.8 passer rating against the Jets.
Tomlin brought in Pickett to anchor the offense for the Steelers' first drive of the second half. The former Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback opened up his account with the Steelers by throwing an interception to Jets safety Jordan Whitehead on the very first pass of his NFL career, although he did respond by scoring a pair of rushing touchdowns later in the half. However, he did finish up with three interceptions thrown on the day.
After back-to-back weeks of shying away from even entertaining the idea of making a change at the quarterback position, Tomlin felt that the second half of this contest was just the time to roll out Pickett onto the field because the offense was in need of a “spark.”
“We needed a spark, we didn’t do much in the first half,” Tomlin said during his post-game press conference. “Not enough offensively, thought he could provide a spark for us.”
Tomlin stopped short of officially announcing who will start at quarterback in the Steelers’ Week 5 road game against the Buffalo Bills, noting that “we’ll deal with next week, next week.”
Tomlin also took some time to analyze Pickett's first snaps in a regular season game, as he noted that the rookie passer “did some good things.”
All eyes now turn to just who will be under center come the Steelers’ showdown with the Bills in Week 5.
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