Kenny Pickett's knee injury creates a nightmare scenario for the Steelers

There's nothing like adding insult to injury. It wasn't enough that the Pittsburgh Steelers suffered a humiliating blowout loss to the Houston Texans in Week 4. In the process, their starting quarterback, Kenny Pickett suffered an injury to his left knee.

The injury occurred on a fourth down play. As Pickett couldn't find anyone open, he attempted to scramble out of the pocket and was sacked. In the process, his left leg got trapped underneath the defender, and he went down in pain -- clutching his knee.

Pickett was ultimately helped off the field with some assistance from the training camp, but he had a noticeable limp and was grimacing in pain. He was quickly ruled out for the remainder of the contest. Pickett finished the game completing just 15 of 23 passes for a mere 115 yards (5.0 yards per attempt) with an interception and a 59.0 passer rating, according to ESPN stats.

Kenny Pickett injury is the worst-case scenario for Steelers

It's very hard to argue that Kenny Pickett was playing good football early in the season. After getting grossly outplayed by 49ers QB Brock Purdy in Week 1, Pickett had an incredibly sloppy game in Week 2 against the Browns.

Just when it looked like Pickett was gaining some momentum following the Sunday Night Football game against the Raiders, he proved to really struggle in nearly three quarters of play against the Texans prior to exiting the contest.

Despite all of his early season struggles in year two, this is one player the Steelers cannot afford to lose. The Steelers really need to see what they have from Kenny Pickett, and they can't do that if he's watching with crutches on the sideline.

Even optimistic fans know deep down that Mitch Trubisky is not the answer for this franchise. The former second-overall pick is now in his seventh NFL season, and we have seen enough to know that he's just a backup at this point. However, if Trubisky plays well in Pickett's absence, it's only going to further divide the fanbase.

At this point in time, I'm not a believer in Kenny Pickett either. He certainly has not taken the second-year leap that we needed to see from him, and with each passing game that he underwhelms, it's looking less and less likely that he will be a long-term franchise QB.

However, considering that Pickett has just one full combined year of starting experience in the NFL, it's hard to write him off this early. What we really needed to see more than anything else is Pickett staying on the field this season.

If this had happened, we would likely have seen one of two things: Either Pickett improves throughout the year and shows why he's the guy, or he struggles all year long and Pittsburgh learns that they need to move on.

Now, if Pickett is sidelined, we won't find out what we need to know. This is a billion-dollar business, and if Pickett isn't the QB who's going to lead this team back to a Super Bowl, then the Steelers should be wasting their time. but if he misses a good chunk of time, this is a nightmare scenario for Pittsburgh.

We don't have an update on Kenny Pickett at this point in time and we wish him a speedy recovery. Let's hope he can get back on the field soon, so the Pittsburgh Steelers can truly find out if they have anything in Pickett or if they need to start making plans for the future.