Steelers Now
Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw defended Kenny Pickett once again recently.
“Steelers getting rid of Kenny Pickett. 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 said in a recent interview on To The Point Home Service Podcast.
Cleveland Browns legend Hanford Dixon agrees with Bradshaw’s take.
“The Steelers could’ve done more to help this kid out. Give him a better offensive line, surrounding him with some better players,” Dixon said.
Could the Steelers have surrounded Kenny Pickett with better players?
"The Steelers could've done more to help this kid out."
Presented by @drinkgaragebeer https://t.co/zB1MaG0Ran pic.twitter.com/f97lS1D10z
— The Hanford Dixon Show (@TopDawgShow) July 9, 2025
In May, Pickett didn’t hold back when reflecting on his time with the Eagles, appearing to take a subtle shot at his former team during an interview with Browns media.
“I’m extremely grateful for my time in Philly,” Pickett said. “I just was shown how it’s supposed to be done, really, from the top down. So you get a chance to see what it’s supposed to look like and how it should look on a day-to-day basis, not just on Sundays. I think that will pay dividends for me in my future.”
Before joining the Eagles, Pickett spent two seasons with the Steelers, who selected him with the 20th overall pick in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Once viewed as the potential heir to Ben Roethlisberger, Pickett showed flashes of late-game heroics but struggled to establish consistency in the offense.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, Pickett held the top spot on the Browns’ quarterback depth chart as the team prepared for OTAs and minicamp.
“It’s a tough call before we’ve even seen the first practice of organized team activities, but I know Kenny Pickett heads in as the frontrunner to win the starting job at the outset,” Cabot said. “He’ll take the initial first-team reps in OTAs and probably the mandatory minicamp, and it seems like it’s his job to try to keep for now.”
Pickett returning to Pittsburgh in Week 6 did not make ProFootball Focus’ list of top revenge games in 2025. The Browns have several quarterbacks competing for the starting job, so Pickett might not even be the starter.
If Pickett is the backup, the storyline is pretty much irrelevant. Now if he starts, that will be an electric atmosphere on the North Shore on Oct. 12. Steelers fans don’t really have a lot of love for Pickett after his sudden departure from the team in March of 2024. And now he’s a Brown, so that makes things even more interesting.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Browns Legend Says Steelers Failed Kenny Pickett
