It’s been an active week for Pittsburgh, and there’s plenty more to come. Kenny Pickett thrives and Diontae Johnson caves to pressure in the latest Steelers news.
It’s been an eventful week for Pittsburgh Steelers fans filled with rumors surrounding Diontae Johnson, Brian Flores, and Matt Canada. After an eventful Black Monday around the NFL, most seem disappointed that Matt Canada still has an offensive coordinator job in the Steel City.
That’s not guaranteed to remain the case, as Mike Tomlin has not finished his exit interviews with players and his coaching staff, and the front office still has plenty of time to decide which direction to go for the 2023 season. The latest Steelers news involves Kenny Pickett joining elite company and Diontae Johnson caving to peer pressure after rumors swirled all week.
Steelers news
While Kenny Pickett never really put up impressive numbers for the Pittsburgh Steelers during his rookie season, he did execute Matt Canada’s stale game plan — especially down the stretch. This helped Pittsburgh to a 7-2 record over their final 9 games to close the 2022 season.
Box score checkers weren’t thrilled with the results this year, but Pro Football Focus says otherwise. Recently, PFF released a tweet of the top two highest-graded quarterbacks in the NFL since Week 12. Pickett was only behind Bills QB, Josh Allen.
Highest graded QBs since Week 12:
— PFF PIT Steelers (@PFF_Steelers) January 11, 2023
🥇 Josh Allen - 90.9
🥈 KENNY PICKETT - 90.1 pic.twitter.com/rtwQqieVLL
This is a phenomenal company, and a 90.1 grade during this stretch is outstanding. PFF determined that Pickett was executing the game plan almost flawlessly and was terrific in what he was asked to do — regardless of the numbers.
More Steelers news
Steelers news this week has been dominated by Diontae Johnson and his cryptic tweet. There were many different interpretations of what fans thought it could mean, and it’s possible that it could be nothing at all.
Shortly after, however, we found out that Johnson wasn’t following the Steelers on Instagram. There were reports that he had unfollowed the team, but there was never much evidence to suggest he followed them in the first place.
Diontae Johnson now follows the Steelers on instagram 😂😂 #diontaejohnson #Steelers #herewego @Juiceup__3 pic.twitter.com/Qc7v898gVb
— matthew luciow (@Luciow1992) January 11, 2023
After trending on Twitter for this very reason, Diontae has apparently been pressed into hitting the follow button on IG to put all of this silliness to rest. I’m guessing he was sick of hearing about trade talks swirling around and rumors that he is unhappy in Pittsburgh.
NFL news
More rumors swirled this week that the Chicago Bears could be eyeing quarterback, Bryce Young, after earning the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Despite his struggles passing the ball this year, this wouldn’t make a ton of sense for a team who recently invested a high pick in the dynamic quarterback.
Recently, CBS Sports posted their first-round mock draft, and they had the Indianapolis Colts moving up to the number one overall pick for their quarterback. In this mock, the Bears moved back to the fourth pick and took offensive tackle, Peter Skoronski, while gaining a boatload of added draft capital in the process.