Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett holds the fate of the franchise in his (tiny, boy-sized) hands. After being thrust into the starting role in Week Four, Pickett demonstrated a considerable amount of moxie, even if he didn't show nearly as much consistency. In his 12 games as starter last year, Pickett went 7-5 and nearly dragged the Steelers to the playoffs, yet still posted pedestrian individual stats. He threw for just 2,404 yards and seven touchdowns, but also threw nine interceptions and his 6.18 yards per attempt, which was second worst in the league. On the ground, he chipped in another 237 yards and three touchdowns, which were subsequently balanced out his four fumbles.

Heading into his second season, though, Pickett is working tirelessly to improve. Even if he doesn't have the talent or physical gifts of a traditional franchise quarterback, he certainly has the mentality of one.

“Now I just want to keep growing there,” Pickett told the Pittsburgh Steelers team website as part of an offseason feature. “I don't think you're ever done improving. I always feel like I improve physically every offseason. I feel like I evaluate what I need to improve on physically, whether it's getting stronger, faster or putting weight on.

Beyond working on his body, Pickett hopes to refine some of the finer points of quarterbacking.

“From a fundamental standpoint, footwork, pocket, there's more things I can work on,” Kenny Pickett added, “but all of those things tie in with the progression and what I'm seeing mentally. It's a big umbrella of things I can always improve on.”

“I want to continue to improve the mental aspect of the game,” he continued. “Mastering the system from progressions, when I can take shots, understanding how Coach Canada calls a game, going back and watching tape and seeing what I could have done better, watching all the interceptions, the incompletions and where I could have gone with the ball. Seeing if the interception happened because we had a tipped pass or guys fall down, things happened or was it a misread that I did not see the right key on that certain play.”

“There are so many things I'm going to go through here in this offseason in order for me to take that big jump in year two, which I'm expecting myself to do.”